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THE  LIBRARY  OF  THE 
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ENDOWED  BY  THE 
DIALECTIC  AND  PHILANTHROPIC 
SOCIETIES 


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UNIVERSITY  OF  N.C.  AT  CHAPEL  HILL 


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JAMBS  RUSSELL  LOWELL'S  WRITINGS. 

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THE 


POETICAL  WORKS 


OF 


JAMES  KUSSELL  LOWELL. 


HOUSEHOLD  EDITION. 


BOSTON": 
JAMES  P.  OSGOOD  AND  COMPANY, 

Late  Ticknob  &  Fields,  and  Fields,  Osgood,  &  Co. 

1876. 


Copyright,  1857,  1866,  1868,  1869,  and  1876, 
By  JAMES  RUSSELL  LOWELL. 


University  Press:  Welch,  Bigelow,  &  Co., 
Cambridge. 


TO 

GEORGE  WILLIAM  CURTIS, 
GTfjte  JFtrst  Complete  fEtitttott  of  tns  ^oetns 

IS  AFFECTIONATELY  INSCRIBED. 


CONTENTS. 

—4  

EARLIER  POEMS.  page 

Threnodia   1 

The  Sirens   2 

Iren6                                                                                            ■      ■  3 

Serenade   4 

With  a  Pressed  Flower   5 

The  Beggar   5 

My  Love   5 

Summer  Storm   6 

Love   7 

To  Perdita,  Singing   8 

The  Moon   9 

Remembered  Music   9 

Song   9 

Allegra   10 

The  Fountain  .10 

Ode   11 

The  Fatherland                                                                                         .  13 

The  Forlorn   14 

Midnight   15 

A  Prayer   15 

The  Heritage   15 

The  Rose:  A  Ballad   16 

Song   17 

Rosaline   17 

A  Requiem       .   18 

A  Parable   18 

Song   19 

SONNETS. 

i.    To  A.  C.  L   19 

ii.    "  What  were  I,  Love  "   19 

in.    "  I  would  not  have  this  perfect  love  "   20 

iv.  "  For  this  true  nobleness "   20 

v.  To  the  Spirit  of  Keats   20 

vi.  "  Great  Truths  are  portions  of  the  soul"   20 

vii.  "  I  ask  not  for  those  thoughts "   20 

viii.    To  M.  W.,  on  her  birthday   21 

ix.    "My  Love,  I  have  no  fear"   21 

x.    "  I  cannot  think  that  thou"   21 


vi  CONTENTS. 

xi.    " There  never  yet  was  flower"   24 

xn.    Sub  Fondere  Crescit   22 

xin.    "  Beloved,  in  the  noisy  city  here  "   22 

xiv.    On  reading  Wordsworth's  Sonnets  in  Defence  of  Capital  Punishment      .      .  22 

xv.    The  same  continued  -   22 

xvi.  The  same  continued   22 

xvii.  The  same  continued   23 

xvm.    The  same  continued   23 

xix.  The  same  continued   23 

xx.  To  M.  O.  S   23 

xxi.    " Our  love  is  not  a  fading,  earthly  flower"   24 

xxii.    In  Absence   24 

xxm.   Wendell  Phillips   24 

xxiv.    The  Street   24 

xxv.    "  I  grieve  not  that  ripe  Knowledge"   25 

xxvi.    To  J.  R.  Giddings   25 

xxvu.    "  I  thought  our  love  at  full "   25 

L'Envoi   25 

MISCELLANEOUS  POEMS. 

A  Legend  of  Brittany   27 

Prometheus   38 

The  Shepherd  of  King  Admetus   44 

The  Token   44 

An  Incident  in  a  Railroad  Car   44 

Rhoecus   46 

The  Falcon   48 

Trial   48 

A  Glance  behind  the  Curtain   49 

A  Chippewa  Legend   54 

Stanzas  on  Freedom   56 

Columbus   56 

An  Incident  of  the  Fire  at  Hamburg   60 

The  Sower   61 

Hunger  and  Cold   61 

The  Landlord  *.....  62 

To  a  Pine-Tree   63 

Si  Descendero  in  Infernum,  Ades   63 

To  the  Past   64 

To  the  Future   65 

Hebe   66 

The  Search   66 

The  Present  Crisis   67 

An  Indian-Summer  Reverie   69 

The  Growth  of  the  Legend   74 

A  Contrast   76 

Extreme  Unction   76 

The  Oak   77 

Ambrose   78 

Above  and  Below   79 

The  Captive   79 

The  Birch-Tree      .  '   80 

An  Interview  with  Miles  Standish   81 

On  the  Capture  of  Fugitive  Slaves  near  Washington  .      .       .....  82 


CONTENTS.  vii 

To  the  Dandelion   83 

The  Ghost-Seer   84 

Studies  for  two  Heads   86 

On  a  Portrait  of  Dante  by  Giotto                                                                .  87 

On  the  Death  of  a  Friend's  Child   87 

Eurydice   89 

She  Came  and  Went   90 

The  Changeling   90 

The  Pioneer   91 

Longing   92 

Ode  to  France   92 

Anti-Apis  .94 

A  Parable   96 

Ode  written  for  the  Celebration  of  the  Introduction  of  the  Cochituate  Water  into  the 

City  of  Boston   96 

Lines  suggested  by  the  graves  of  two  English  Soldiers  on  Concord  Battle-Ground  .  97 

t*   To  —      .      .      .   .98 

Freedom   98 

Bibliolatres   99 

Beaver  Brook   100 

MEMORIAL  VERSES. 

Kossuth   101 

To  Lamartine    '   101 

To  John  G.  Palfrey   102 

To  W.  L.  Garrison   103 

On  the  Death  of  C.  T.  Torrey   104 

Elegy  on  the  Death  of  Dr.  Channing   104 

To  the  Memory  of  Hood   106 

THE  VISION  OF  SIR  LAUNFAL   107 

A  FABLE  FOR  CRITICS   113 

THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS.   First  Series. 

Notices  of  an  Independent  Press    153 

Note  to  Title-Page   160 

Introduction   162 

i.    A  Letter  from  Mr.  Ezekiel  Biglow  of  Jaalam  to  the  Hon.  Joseph  T.  Buckingham  169 

ii.    A  Letter  from  Mr.  Hosea  Biglow  to  the  Hon.  J.  T.  Buckingham     .      .      .  171 

in.    What  Mr.  Robinson  thinks   175 

iv.  Remarks  of  Increase  D.  O'Phace,  Esq   179 

v.  The  Debate  in  the  Sennit   185 

vi.    The  Pious  Editor's  Creed   187 

vii.  A  Letter  from  a  Candidate  for  the  Presidency  in  answer  to  suttin  Questions 

proposed  by  Mr.  Hosea  Biglow   190 

viii.  A  second  Letter  from  B.  Sawin,  Esq   193 

ix.   A  third  Letter  from  B.  Sawin,  Esq   199 

THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS.    Second  Series. 

Introduction   209 

i.   Birdofredum  Sawin,  Esq.,  to  Mr.  Hosea  Biglow   231 

11.   Mason  and  Slidell :  A  Yankee  Idyll   238 

in.    Birdofredum  Sawin,  Esq. ,  to  Mr.  Hosea  Biglow   250 

iv.    A  Message  of  Jeff  Davis  in  Secret  Session   257 

v.    Speech  of  Honourable  Preserved  Doe  in  Secret  Caucus       ....  263 


Vlll 


CONTEXTS. 


vi.    Sunthin'  in  the  Pastoral  Line   269 

vn.    Latest  Views  of  Mr.  Biglow   275 

viii.    Kettelopotomachia   279 

ix.  Some  memorials  of  the  late  Reverend  H.  Wilbur   282 

x.  Mr.  Hosea  Biglow  to  the  Editor  of  the  Atlantic  Monthly   2S5 

xi.  Mr.  Hosea  Biglow's  Speech  in  March  Meeting   287 

Glossary   296 

Index   299 

THE  UNHAPPY  LOT  OF  MR  KNOTT   311 

AX  ORIENTAL  APOLOGUE   322 

UNDER  THE  WILLOWS,  AND  OTHER  POEMS. 

To  Charles  Eliot  Norton   329 

Under  the  Willows   329 

Para   335 

The  First  Snow-Fail   336 

The  Singing  Leaves   337 

Sea-Weed   338 

The  Finding  of  the  Lyre   338 

New- Year's  Eve.    1850    339 

For  an  Autograph   339 

Al  Fresco   339 

Masaccio   340 

Without  and  Within   341 

Godminster  Chimes   341 

The  Parting  of  the  Ways   342 

Aladdin   344 

An  Invitation   344 

The  Nomades   345 

Self-Study   346 

Pictures  from  Appledore   347 

The  Wind-Harp   351 

Auf  Wiedersehen   352 

Palinode   352 

After  the  Burial   353 

The  Dead  House   353 

A  Mood   354 

The  Voyage  to  Vinland   354 

Mahmood  the  Image-Breaker   358 

Invita  Minerva   359 

The  Fountain  of  Youth   359 

Yussouf   362 

The  Darkened  Mind   362 

What  Rabbi  Jehosha  said   363 

All-Saints   363 

A  Winter-Evening  Hymn  to  my  Fire   363 

Fancy's  Casuistry   365 

To  Mr.  John  Bartlett   366 

Ode  to  Happiness   367 

Villa  Franca   368 

The  Miner   369 

Gold  Egg :  A  Dream-Fantasy   369 


CONTENTS.  ix 

A  Familiar  Epistle  to  a  Friend   371 

An  Ember  Picture   373 

To  H.  W.  L   374 

The  Nightingale  in  the  Study  ■  375 

In  the  Twilight  -   375 

The  Foot-Path   376 

POEMS  OF  THE  WAR. 

The  Washers  of  the  Shroud  1  .  378 

Two  Scenes  from  the  Life  of  Blondel   380 

Memoriae  Positum   381 

On  Board  the  76    383 

Ode  recited  at  the  Harvard  Commemoration   384 

L'Envoi :  To  the  Muse   390 

THE  CATHEDRAL   393 


INDEX  405 


EARLIER  POEMS. 


THRENODIA. 

Gone,  gone  from  us  !  and  shall  we  see 
Those  sibyl-leaves  of  destiny, 
Those  calm  eyes,  nevermore  ? 
Those  deep,  dark  eyes  so  warm  and 
bright, 

Wherein  the  fortunes  of  the  man 
Lay  slumbering  in  prophetic  light, 
In  characters  a  child  might  scan  ? 
So  bright,  and  gone  forth  utterly  ! 
0  stern  word —  Nevermore  ! 

The  stars  of  those  two  gentle  eyes 
Will  shine  no  more  on  earth  ; 
Quenched  are  the  hopes  that  had  their 
birth, 

As  we  watched  them  slowly  rise, 
Stars  of  a  mother's  fate  ; 
And  she  would  read  them  o'er  and  o'er, 
Pondering,  as  she  sate, 
Over  their  dear  astrology, 
Which  she  had  conned  and  conned  before, 
Deeming  she  needs  must  read  aright 
What  was  writ  so  passing  bright. 
And  yet,  alas  !  she  knew  not  why, 
Her  voice  would  falter  in  its  song, 
And  tears  would  slide  from  out  her  eye, 
Silent,  as  they  were  doing  wrong. 

0  stern  word  —  Nevermore  ! 

The  tongue  that  scarce  had  learned  to 
claim 

An  entrance  to  a  mother's  heart 

By  that  dear  talisman,  a  mother's  name, 

Sleeps  all  forgetful  of  its  art  ! 

1  loved  to  see  the  infant  soul 
(How  mighty  in  the  weakness 
Of  its  untutored  meekness  !) 
Peep  timidly  from  out  its  nest, 
His  lips,  the  while, 

Fluttering  with  half-fledged  words, 

Or  hushing  to  a  smile 

That  more  than  words  expressed, 


When  his  glad  mother  on  him  stole 
And  snatched  him  to  her  breast ! 
0,  thoughts  were  brooding  in  those  eyes, 
That  would   have  soared  like  strong- 
winged  birds 
Far,  far  into  the  skies, 
Gladding  the  earth  with  song, 
And  gushing  harmonies, 
Had  he  but  tarried  with  us  long  ! 
0  stern  word  —  Nevermore  ! 

How  peacefully  they  rest, 
Crossfolded  there 
Upon  his  little  breast, 
Those  small,  white  hands  that  ne'er  were 

still  before, 
But  ever  sported  with  his  mother's  hair, 
Or  the  plain  cross  that  on  her  breast  she 

wore  ! 

Her  heart  no  more  will  beat 
To  feel  the  touch  of  that  soft  palm, 
That  ever  seemed  a  new  surprise 
Sending  glad  thoughts  up  to  her  eyes 
To  bless  him  with  their  holy  calm,  — 
Sweet  thoughts  !  they  made  her  eyes  as 
sweet. 

How  quiet  are  the  hands 

That  wove  those  pleasant  bands  ! 

But  that  they  do  not  rise  and  sink 

With  his  calm  breathing,  I  should  think 

That  he  were  dropped  asleep. 

Alas  !  too  deep,  too  deep 

Is  this  his  slumber  ! 

Time  scarce  can  number 

The  years  ere  he  will  wake  again. 

0,  may  we  see  his  eyelids  open  then  ! 

0  stern  word  —  Nevermore  ! 

As  the  airy  gossamere, 
Floating  in  the  sunlight  clear, 
Where'er  it  toucheth  clingeth  tightly, 
Round  glossy  leaf  or  stump  unsightly, 
So  from  his  spirit  wandered  out 
Tendrils  spreading  all  about, 


2  EARLIER  POEMS. 


Knitting  all  things  to  its  thrall 
With  a  perfect  love  of  all  : 
O  stern  word  —  Nevermore  ! 

He  did  but  float  a  little  way 
Adown  the  stream  of  time, 
With  dreamy  eyes  watching  the  ripples 

Pla?'. 

Or  hearkening  their  fairy  chime  ; 

His  slender  sail 

Ne'er  felt  the  gale  ; 

He  did  but  float  a  little  way, 

And,  putting  to  the  shore 

While  yet 't  was  early  day, 

Went  calmly  on  his  way, 

To  dwell  with  us  no  more  ! 

No  jarring  did  he  feel, 

No  grating  on  his  vessel's  keel ; 

A  strip  of  silver  sand 

Mingled  the  waters  with  the  land 

Where  he  was  seen  no  more  : 

O  stern  word  —  Nevermore  ! 

Full  short  his  journey  was ;  no  dust 
Of  earth  unto  his  sandals  clave  ; 
The  weary  weight  that  old  men  must, 
He  bore  not  to  the  grave. 
He  seemed  a  cherub  who  had  lost  his 
way 

And  wandered  hither,  so  his  stay 
With  us  was  short,  and  'twas  most  meet 
That  he  should  be  no  delver  in  earth's 
clod, 

Nor  need  to  pause  and  cleanse  his  feet 
To  stand  before  his  God: 
O  blest  word  —  Evermore  ! 


THE  SIRENS. 

The  sea  is  lonely,  the  sea  is  dreary, 
The  sea  is  restless  and  uneasy ; 
Thou  seekest  quiet,  thou  art  weary, 
Wandering  thou  knowest  not  whith- 
er ;— 

Our  little  isle  is  green  and  breezy, 
Come  and  rest  thee  !  0  come  hither, 
Come  to  this  peaceful  home  of  ours, 

Where  evermore 
The  low  west-wind  creeps  panting  up 

the  shore 
To  be  at  rest  among  the  flowers  ; 
Full  of  rest,  the  green  moss  lifts, 

As  the  dark  waves  of  the  sea 
Draw  in  and  out  of  rocky  rifts, 

Calling  solemnly  to  thee 
With  voices  deep  and  hollow,  — 


"  To  the  shore 
Follow  !  0,  follow  ! 
To  be  at  rest  forevermore  ! 
Forevermore  !  " 

Look  how  the  gray  old  Ocean 
From  the  depth  of  his  heart  rejoices, 
Heaving  with  a  gentle  motion, 
When  he  hears  our  restful  voices  ; 
List  how  he  sings  in  an  undertone, 
Chiming  with  our  melody  ; 
And  all  sweet  sounds  of  earth  and  air 
Melt  into  one  low  voice  alone, 
That  murmurs  over  the  weary  sea, 
And  seems  to  sing  from  everywhere,  — 
"  Here  mayst  thou  harbor  peacefully, 
Here  mayst  thou  rest  from  the  aching 
oar ; 

Turn  thy  curved  prow  ashore, 
And  in  our  green  isle  rest  forevermore  ! 

Forevermore  !  " 
And  Echo  half  wakes  in  the  wooded  hill, 
And,  to  her  heart  so  calm  and  deep, 
Murmurs  over  in  her  sleep, 
Doubtfully  pausing  and  murmuring  still, 
"  Evermore  !  " 

Thus,  on  Life's  weary  sea, 
Heareth  the  marinere 
Voices  sweet,  from  far  and  near, 
Ever  singing  low  and  clear, 
Ever  singing  longingly. 

Is  it  not  better  here  to  be, 
Than  to  be  toiling  late  and  soon  ? 
In  the  dreary  night  to  see 
Nothing  but  the  blood-red  moon 
Go  up  and  down  into  the  sea  ; 
Or,  in  the  loneliness  of  day, 

To  see  the  still  seals  only 
Solemnly  lift  their  faces  gray, 

Making  it  yet  more  lonely  ? 
Is  it  not  better  than  to  hear 
Only  the  sliding  of  the  wave 
Beneath  the  plank,  and  feel  so  near 
A  cold  and  lonely  grave, 
A  restless  grave,  where  thou  shalt  lie 
Even  in  death  unquietly  ? 
Look  down  beneath  thy  wave-worn  bark, 

Lean  over  the  side  and  see 
The  leaden  eye  of  the  sidelong  shark 
Upturned  patiently, 

Ever  waiting  there  for  thee  : 
Look  down  and  see  those  shapeless  forms, 

Which  ever  keep  their  dreamless  sleep 

Far  down  within  the  gloomy  deep, 
And  only  stir  themselves  in  storms, 
Rising  like  islands  from  beneath, 


IREN& 


3 


And  snorting  through  the  angry  spray, 

As  the  frail  vessel  perisheth 

In  the  whirls  of  their  unwieldy  play  ; 

Look  down  !    Look  down  ! 
Upon  the  seaweed,  slimy  and  dark, 
That  waves  its  arms  so  lank  and  brown, 

Beckoning  for  thee  ! 
Look  down  beneath  thy  wave-worn  bark 
'   Into  the  cold  depth  of  the  sea  ! 
Look  down  !    Look  down  ! 
Thus,  on  Life's  lonely  sea, 
Heareth  the  marinere 
Voices  sad,  from  far  and  near, 
Ever  singing  full  of  fear, 
Ever  singing  drearfully. 

Here  all  is  pleasant  as  a  dream  ; 
The  wind  scarce  shaketh  down  the  dew, 
The  green  grass  floweth  like  a  stream 
Into  the  ocean's  blue  ; 
Listen !  0,  listen  ! 
Here  is  a  gush  of  many  streams, 

A  song  of  many  birds, 
And  every  wish  and  longing  seems 
Lulled  to  a  numbered  flow  of  words,  — 

Listen  !  0,  listen  ! 
Here  ever  hum  the  golden  bees 
Underneath  full-blossomed  trees, 
At  once  with  glowing  fruit  and  flowers 

crowned ;  — 
The  sand  is  so  smooth,  the  yellow  sand, 
That  thy  keel  will  not  grate  as  it  touches 

the  land  ; 
All  around  with  a  slumberous  sound, 
The  singing  waves  slide  up  the  strand, 
And  there,  where  the  smooth,  wet  peb- 
bles be, 
The  waters  gurgle  longingly, 
As  if  they  fain  would  seek  the  shore, 
To  be  at  rest  from  the  ceaseless  roar, 
To  be  at  rest  forevermore,  — 
Forevermore. 

Thus,  on  Life's  gloomy  sea, 

Heareth  the  marinere 

Voices  sweet,  from  far  and  near, 

Ever  singing  in  his  ear, 

"Here  is  rest  and  peace  for  thee ! " 


IRENE. 

Hers  is  a  spirit  deep,  and  crystal-clear  ; 
Calmly  beneath  her  earnest  face  it  lies, 
Free  without  boldness,  meek  without  a 
fear, 

Quicker  to  look  than  speak  its  sympa- 
thies ; 


Far  down  into  her  large  and  patient  eyes 
I  gaze,  deep-drinking  of  the  infinite, 
As,  in  the  mid- watch  of  a  clear,  still  night, 
I  look  into  the  fathomless  blue  skies. 

So  circled  lives  she  with  Love's  holy 
light, 

That  from  the  shade  of  self  she  walketh 
free ; 

The  garden  of  her  soul  still  keepeth  she 
An  Eden  where  the  snake  did  never  enter ; 
She  hath  a  natural,  wise  sincerity, 
A  simple  truthfulness,  and  these  have  lent 
her 

A  dignity  as  moveless  as  the  centre  ; 
So  that  no  influence  of  earth  can  stir 
Her  steadfast  courage,  nor  can  take  away 
The  holy  peacefulness,  which  night  and 
day, 

Unto  her  queenly  soul  doth  minister. 

Most  gentle  is  she  ;  her  large  charity 
(An  all  unwitting,  childlike  gift  in  her) 
Not  freer  is  to  give  than  meek  to  bear  ; 
And,  though  herself  not  unacquaint  with 
care, 

Hath  in  her  heart  wide  room  for  all  that 
be,  — 

Her  heart  that  hath  no  secrets  of  its  own, 
But  open  is  as  eglantine  full  blown. 
Cloudless  forever  is  her  brow  serene, 
Speaking  calm  hope  and  trust  within  her, 
whence 

Welleth  a  noiseless  spring  of  patience, 
That  keepeth  all  her  life  so  fresh,  so  green 
And  full  of  holiness,  that  every  look, 
The  greatness  of  her  woman's  soul  reveal- 
ing, 

Unto  me  bringeth  blessing,  and  a  feeling 
As  when  I  read  in  God's  own  holy  book. 

Agraciousness  in  giving  that  doth  make 
The  small'st  gift  greatest,  and  a  sense 

most  meek 
Of  worthiness,  that  doth  not  fear  to  take 
From  others,  but  which  always  fears  to 

speak 

Its  thanks  in  utterance,  for  the  giver's 
sake  ;  — 

The  deep  religion  of  a  thankful  heart, 
Which  rests  instinctively  in  Heaven's 
clear  law 

With  a  full  peace,  that  never  can  depart 
From  its  own  steadfastness ;  —  a  holy  awe 
For  holy  things,  —  not  those  which  men 

call  holy, 
But  such  as  are  revealed  to  the  eyes 


4 


EARLIER  POEMS. 


Of  a  true  woman's  soul  bent  down  and 
lowly 

Before  the  face  of  daily  mysteries  ;  — 
A  love  that  blossoms  soon,  but  ripens 
slowly 

To  the  full  goldenness  of  fruitful  prime, 
Enduring  with  a  firmness  that  defies 
All  shallow  tricks  of  circumstance  and 
time, 

By  a  sure  insight  knowing  where  to  cling, 
And  where  it  clingeth  never  withering ;  — 
These  are  Irene's  dowry,  which  no  fate 
Can  shake  from  their  serene,  deep-builded 
state. 

« In-seeing  sympathy  is  hers,  which,  chas- 
teneth 

No  less  than  loveth,  scorning  to  be  bound 
With  fear  of  blame,  and  yet  which  ever 
hasteneth 

To  pour  the  balm  of  kind  looks  on  the 
wound, 

If  they  be  wounds  which  such  sweet  teach- 
ing makes, 

Giving  itself  a  pang  for  others'  sakes ; 

No  want  of  faith,  that  chills  with  side- 
long eye, 

Hath  she  ;  no  jealousy,  no  Levite  pride 
That  passeth  by  upon  the  other  side  ; 
For  in  her  soul  there  never  dwelt  a  lie. 
Right  from  the  hand  of  God  her  spirit 

came 

Unstained,  and  she  hath  ne'er  forgotten 
whence 

It  came,  nor  wandered  far  from  thence, 
But  laboreth  to  keep  her  still  the  same, 
Near  to  her  place  of  birth,  that  she  may 
not 

Soil  her  white  raiment  with  an  earthly 
spot. 

Yet  sets  she  not  her  soul  so  steadily 
Above,  that  she  forgets  her  ties  to  earth, 
But  her  whole  thought  would  almost  seem 
to  be 

How  to  make  glad  one  lowly  human 
hearth  ; 

For  with  a  gentle  courage  she  doth  strive 
In  thought  and  word  and  feeling  so  to 
live 

As  to  make  earth  next  heaven  ;  and  her 
heart 

Herein  doth  show  its  most  exceeding 
worth, 

That,  bearing  in  our  frailty  her  just  part, 
She  hath  not  shrunk  from  evils  of  this 
life, 


But  hath  gone  calmly  forth  into  the 
strife, 

And  all  its  sins  and  sorrows  hath  with- 
stood 

With  lofty  strength  of  patient  woman- 
hood : 

For  this  I  love  her  great  soul  more  than 
all, 

That,  being  bound,  like  us,  with  earthly 
thrall, 

She  walks  so  bright  and  heaven-like 

therein,  — 
Too  wise,  too  meek,  too  womanly,  to  sin. 

Like  a  lone  star  through  riven  storm- 
clouds  seen 
By  sailors,  tempest-tost  upon  the  sea, 
Telling  of  rest  and  peaceful  heavens  nigh, 
Unto  my  soul  her  star-like  soul  hath 
been, 

Her  sight  as  full  of  hope  and  calm  to 
me  ;  — 

For  she  unto  herself  hath  builded  high 
A  home  serene,  wherein  to  lay  her  head, 
Earth's  noblest  thing,  a  Woman  per- 
fected. 

SERENADE. 

From  the  close-shut  windows  gleams  no 
spark, 

The  night  is  chilly,  the  night  is  dark, 
The  poplars  shiver,  the  pine-trees  moan, 
My  hair  by  the  autumn  breeze  is  blown, 
Under  thy  window  I  sing  alone, 
Alone,  alone,  ah  woe  !  alone! 

The  darkness  is  pressing  coldly  around, 
The  windows  shake  with  a  lonely  sound, 
The  stars  are  hid  and  the  night  is  drear, 
The  heart  of  silence  throbs  in  thine  ear, 
In  thy  chamber  thou  sittest  alone, 
Alone,  alone,  ah  woe  !  alone  ! 

The  world  is  happy,  the  world  is  wide, 
Kind  hearts  are  beating  on  every  side  ; 
Ah,  why  should  we  lie  so  coldly  curled 
Alone  in  the  shell  of  this  great  world  ? 
Why  should  we  any  more  be  alone  ? 
Alone,  alone,  ah  woe  !  alone ! 

0,  't  is  a  bitter  and  dreary  word, 
The  saddest  by  man's  ear  ever  heard  ! 
We  each  are  young,  we  each  have  a  heart, 
Why  stand  we  ever  coldly  apart  ? 
Must  we  forever,  then,  be  alone  ? 
Alone,  alone,  ah  woe  !  alone  ! 


WITH  A  PRESSED  FLOWER.  —  MY  LOVE. 


5 


WITH  A  PRESSED  FLOWER. 

This  little  blossom  from  afar 
Hath  come  from  other  lands  to  thine  ; 
For,  once,  its  white  and  drooping  star 
Could  see  its  shadow  in  the  Rhine. 

Perchance  some  fair-haired  German  maid 
Hath  plucked  one  from  the  selfsame 
stalk, 

And  numbered  over,  half  afraid, 
Its  petals  in  her  evening  walk. 

"  He  loves  me,  loves  me  not,"  she  cries  ; 
"  He  loves  me  more  than  earth  or 
heaven  !  " 

And  then  glad  tears  have  filled  her  eyes 
To  find  the  number  was  uneven. 

And  thou  must  count  its  petals  well, 
Because  it  is  a  gift  from  me  ; 
And  the  last  one  of  all  shall  tell 
Something  I 've  often  told  to  thee. 

But  here  at  home,  wThere  we  were  born, 
Thou  wilt  find  flowers  just  as  true, 
Down-bending  every  summer  morn, 
With  freshness  of  New- England  dew. 

For  Nature,  ever  kind  to  love, 
Hath  granted  them  the  same  sweet 
tongue, 

Whether  with  German  skies  above, 
Or  here  our  granite  rocks  among. 


THE  BEGGAR. 

A  beggar  through  the  world  am  I,  — 
From  place  to  place  I  wander  by. 
Fill  up  my  pilgrim's  scrip  for  me, 
For  Christ's  sweet  sake  and  charity ! 

A  little  of  thy  steadfastness, 
Rounded  with  leafy  gracefulness, 
Old  oak,  give  me, — 
That  the  world's  blasts  may  round  me 
blow, 

And  I  yield  gently  to  and  fro, 
While  my  stout-hearted  trunk  below 
And  firm-set  roots  unshaken  be. 

Some  of  thy  stern,  unyielding  might, 
Enduring  still  through  day  and  night 
Rude   tempest  -  shock    and  withering 

blight,  — 
That  I  may  keep  at  bay 


The  changeful  April  sky  of  chance 
And  the  strong  tide  of  circumstance,  — 
Give  me,  old  granite  gray,- 

Some  of  thy  pensiveness  serene, 
Some  of  thy  never-dying  green, 
Put  in  this  scrip  of  mine,  — 
That  griefs  may  fall  like  snow-flakes 
light, 

And  deck  me  in  a  robe  of  white, 
Ready  to  be  an  angel  bright,  — 
0  sweetly  mournful  pine. 

A  little  of  thy  merriment, 
Of  thy  sparkling,  light  content, 
Give  me,  my  cheerful  brook,  — 
That  I  may  still  be  full  of  glee 
And  gladsomeness,  where'er  I  be, 
Though  fickle  fate  hath  prisoned  me 
In  some  neglected  nook. 

Ye  have  been  very  kind  and  good 
To  me,  since  I 've  been  in  the  wood  ; 
Ye  have  gone  nigh  to  fill  my  heart  ; 
But  good  by,  kind  friends,  every  one, 
I 've  far  to  go  ere  set  of  sun  ; 
Of  all  good  things  I  would  have  part, 
The  day  was  high  ere  I  could  start, 
And  so  my  journey 's  scarce  begun. 

Heaven  help  me  !  how  could  I  forget 

To  beg  of  thee,  dear  violet  ! 

Some  of  thy  modesty, 

That  blossoms  here  as  well,  unseen, 

As  if  before  the  world  thou  'dst  been, 

0,  give,  to  strengthen  me. 


MY  LOVE. 
I. 

Not  as  all  other  women  are 
Is  she  that  to  my  soul  is  dear  ; 
Her  glorious  fancies  come  from  far, 
Beneath  the  silver  evening-star, 
And  yet  her  heart  is  ever  near. 

II. 

Great  feelings  hath  she  of  her  own, 
Which  lesser  souls  may  never  know ; 
God  giveth  them  to  her  alone, 
And  sweet  they  are  as  any  tone 
Wherewith  the  wind  may  choose  to  blow. 

in. 

Yet  in  herself  she  dwelleth  not, 
Although  no  home  were  half  so  fair; 


EARLIER  POEMS. 


No  simplest  duty  is  forgot, 
Life  hath  no  dim  and  lowly  spot 
That  doth  not* in  her  sunshine  share. 

IV. 

She  doeth  little  kindnesses, 

Which  most  leave  undone,  or  despise  : 

For  naught  that  sets  one  heart  at  ease, 

And  giveth  happiness  or  peace, 

Is  low-esteemed  in  her  eyes. 

v. 

She  hath  no  scorn  of  common  things, 
And,  though  she  seem  of  other  birth, 
Round  us  her  heart  in  twines  and  clings, 
And  patiently  she  folds  her  wings 
To  tread  the  humble  paths  of  earth. 

VI. 

Blessing  she  is  :  God  made  her  so, 
And  deeds  of  week-day  holiness 
Fall  from  her  noiseless  as  the  snow, 
Nor  hath  she  ever  chanced  to  know 
That  aught  were  easier  than  to  bless. 

VII. 

She  is  most  fair,  and  thereunto 
Her  life  doth  rightly  harmonize  ; 
Feeling  or  thought  that  was  not  true 
Ne'er  made  less  beautiful  the  blue 
Unclouded  heaven  of  her  eyes. 

VIII. 

She  is  a  woman  :  one  in  whom 
The  spring-time  of  her  childish  years 
Hath  never  lost  its  fresh  perfume, 
Though  knowing  well  that  life  hath  room 
For  many  blights  and  many  tears. 

IX. 

I  love  her  with,  a  love  as  still 
As  a  broad  river's  peaceful  might, 
"Which,  by  high  tower  and  lowly  mill. 
Goes  wandering  at  its  own  will, 
And  yet  doth  ever  flow  aright. 

x. 

And,  on  its  full,  deep  breast  serene, 
Like  quiet  isles  my  duties  lie  ; 
It  flows  around  them  and  between, 
And  makes  them  fresh  and  fair  and  green, 
Sweet  homes  wherein  to  live  and  die. 


SUMMER  STORM. 

Untremulous  in  the  river  clear, 
Toward  the  sky's  image,  hangs  the  im- 
aged bridge  ; 
So  still  the  air  that  I  can  hear 
The  slender  clarion  of  the  unseen  midge  ; 
Out  of  the  stillness,  with  a  gathering 
creep, 

Like  rising  wind  in  leaves,  which  now 
decreases, 

Now  lulls,  now  swells,  and  all  the  while 

increases, 

The  huddling  trample  of  a  drove  of 
sheep 

Tilts  the  loose  planks,  and  then  as  grad- 
ually ceases 
In  dust  on  the  other  side  ;  life's  em- 
blem deep, 

A  confused  noise  between  two  silences, 

Finding  at  last  in  dust  precarious  peace. 

On  the  wide  marsh  the  purple-blossomed 
grasses 

Soak  up  the  sunshine  ;  sleeps  the 

brimming  tide, 
Save  when  the  wedge-shaped  wake  in 

silence  passes 
Of  some  slow  water-rat,  whose  sinuous 

glide 

Wavers  the  long  green  sedge's  shade  from 

side  to  side  ; 
But  up  the  west,  like  a  rock-shivered 

surge, 

Climbs  a  great  cloud  edged  with  sun- 
whitened  spray  ; 
Huge  whirls  of  foam  boil  toppling  o'er 
its  verge, 

And  falling  still  it  seems,  and  yet  it 
climbs  alway. 

Suddenly  all  the  sky  is  hid 
As  with  the  shutting  of  a  lid, 
One  by  one  great  drops  are  falling 

Doubtful  and  slow, 
Down  the  pane  they  are  crookedly 
crawling, 
And  the  wind  breathes  low  ; 
Slowly   the    circles  widen    on  the 
river, 

Widen  and  mingle,  one  and  all  ; 
Here  and  there  the  slenderer  flowers 
shiver, 

Struck  by  an  icy  rain-drop's  fall. 

Now  on  the  hills  I  hear  the  thunder 
mutter, 

The  wind  is  gathering  in  the  west  ; 


LOVE. 


7 


The  upturned  leaves  first  whiten  and 
flutter, 

Then  droop  to  a  fitful  rest  ; 
Up  from  the  stream  with  sluggish  flap 
Struggles  the  gull  and  floats  away  ; 
Nearer  and  nearer  rolls  the  thunder- 
clap, — 

"We  shall  not  see  the  sun  go  down  to- 
day : 

Now  leaps  the  wind  on  the  sleepy  marsh, 
And  tramples  the  grass  with  terrified 
feet, 

The  startled  river  turns  leaden  and  harsh. 
You  can  hear  the  quick  heart  of  the 
tempest  beat. 

Look  !  look  !  that  livid  flash  ! 
And  instantly  follows  the  rattling  thun- 
der, 

As  if  some  cloud-crag,  split  asunder, 

Fell,   splintering  with  a  ruinous 
crash, 

On  the  Earth,  which  crouches  in  silence 
under  ; 

And  now  a  solid  gray  wall  of  rain 
Shuts  off  the  landscape,  mile  by  mile  ; 
For  a  breath's  space  I  see  the  blue 
wood  again, 
And  ere  the  next  heart-beat,  the  wind- 
hurled  pile, 
That  seemed  but  now  a  league  aloof, 
Bursts  crackling  o'er  the  sun-parched 
roof ; 

Against  the  windows  the  storm  comes 
dashing, 

Through  tattered  foliage  the  hail  tears 
crashing, 
The  blue  lightning  flashes, 
The  rapid  hail  clashes, 
The  white  waves  are  tumbling, 

And,  in  one  baffled  roar, 
Like  the  toothless  sea  mumbling 

A  rock-bristled  shore, 
The  thunder  is  rumbling 
And  crashing  and  crumbling,  — 
Will  silence  return  nevermore  ? 

Hush!    Still  as  death, 
The  tempest  holds  his  breath 
As  from  a  sudden  will ; 
The  rain  stops  short,  but  from  the 
eaves 

You  see  it  drop,  and  hear  it  from  the 
leaves, 
All  is  so  bodingly  still  ; 
Again,  now,  now,  again 
Plashes  the  rain  in  heavy  gouts, 


The  crinkled  lightning 
Seems  ever  brightening, 
And  loud  and  long 
Again  the  thunder  shouts 
His  battle-song,  — 
One  quivering  flash, 
One  wilder ing  crash, 
Followed  by  silence  dead  and  dull, 
As  if  the  cloud,  let  go, 
Leapt  bodily  below 
To  whelm  the  earth  in  one  mad  over- 
throw, 
And  then  a  total  lull. 

Gone,  gone,  so  soon  ! 
No  more  my  half-crazed  fancy 
there, 

Can  shape  a  giant  in  the  air, 
No  more  I  see  his  streaming  hair, 
The  writhing  portent  of  his  form  ;  — 
The  pale  and  quiet  moon 
Makes  her  calm  forehead  bare, 
And  the  last  fragments  of  the  storm, 
Like  shattered  rigging  from  a  fight  at  sea, 
Silent  and  few,  are  drifting  over  me. 


LOVE. 

True  Love  is  but  a  humble,  low-born 
thing, 

And  hath  its  food  served  up  in  earthen 
ware  ; 

It  is  a  thing  to  walk  with,  hand  in  hand, 
Through  the  every-dayness  of  this  work- 
day world, 
Baring  its  tender  feet  to  every  roughness, 
Yet  letting  not  one  heart-beat  go  astray 
From  Beauty's  law  of  plainness  and  con- 
tent ; 

A  simple,  fireside  thing,  whose  quiet 
smile 

Can  warm  earth's  poorest  hovel  to  a 
home  ; 

Which,  when  our  autumn  cometh,  as  it 
must, 

And  life  in  the  chill  wind  shivers  bare 

and  leafless, 
Shall  still  be  blest  with  Indian-summer 

youth 

In  bleak  November,  and,  with  thankful 
heart, 

Smile  on  its  ample  stores  of  garnered 
fruit, 

As  full  of  sunshine  to  our  aged  eyes 
As  when  it  nursed  the  blossoms  of  our 
spring. 


EARLIER  POEMS. 


Such  is  true  Love,  which  steals  into  the 
heart 

"With  feet  as  silent  as  the  lightsome  dawn 
That  kisses  smooth  the  rough  hrows  of 
the  dark, 

And  hath  its  will  through  blissful  gen- 
tleness, — 

Kot  like  a  rocket,  which,  with  savage 
glare, 

"Whirs  suddenly  up,  then  bursts,  and 

leaves  the  night 
Painfully  quivering  on  the  dazed  eyes  ; 
A  love  that  gives  and  takes,  that  seeth 

faults, 

Kot  with  flaw-seeking  eyes  like  needle 
points, 

But  loving-kindly  ever  looks  them  down 
"With  the  o'ercoming  faith  of  meek  for- 
giveness; 

A  love  that  shall  be  new  and  fresh  each 
hour, 

As  is  the  golden  mystery  of  sunset, 
Or  the  sweet  coming  of  the  evening-star, 
Alike,  and  yet  most  unlike,  every  day, 
And  seeming  ever  best  and  fairest  now ; 
A  love  that  doth  not  kneel  for  what  it 
seeks, 

But  faces  Truth  and  Beauty  as  their 
peer, 

Showing  its  worthiness  of  noble  thoughts 
By  a  clear  sense  of  inward  nobleness  ; 
A  love  that  in  its  object  findeth  not 
All  grace  and  beauty,  and  enough  to  sate 
Its  thirst  of  blessing,  but,  in  all  of  good 
Found  there,  it  sees  but  Heaven-granted 
types 

Of  good  and  beauty  in  the  soul  of  man, 
And  traces,  in  the  simplest  heart  that 
beats, 

A  family-likeness  to  its  chosen  one, 
That  claims  of  it  the  rights  of  brother- 
hood. 

For  love  is  blind  but  with  the  fleshly 

eye, 

That  so  its  inner  sight  may  be  more  clear ; 
And  outward  shows  of  beauty  only  so 
Are  needful  at  the  first,  as  is  a  hand 
To  guide  and  to  uphold  an  infant's  steps  : 
Great  spirits  need  them  not :  their  earnest 
look 

Pierces  the  body's  mask  of  thin  disguise, 
And  beauty  ever  is  to  them  revealed, 
Behind  the  unshapeliest,  meanest  lump 
of  clay, 

"With  arms  outstretched  and  eager  face 
ablaze, 

Yearning  to  be  but  understood  and  loved. 


TO  PERDITA,  SINGING. 

Thy  voice  is  like  a  fountain, 

Leaping  up  in  clear  moonshine  ; 
Silver,  silver,  ever  mounting, 
Ever  sinking, 
"Without  thinking, 
To  that  brimful  heart  of  thine. 
Every  sad  and  happy  feeling, 
Thou  hast  had  in  bygone  years, 
Through  thy  lips  comes  stealing,  steal- 
ing, 

Clear  and  low  ; 
All  thy  smiles  and  all  thy  tears 
In  thy  voice  awaken, 
And  sweetness,  wove  of  joy  and  woe, 
From  their  teaching  it  hath  taken : 
Feeling  and  music  move  together, 
Like  a  swan  and  shadow  ever 
Floating  on  a  sky-blue  river 
In  a  day  of  cloudless  weather. 

It  hath  caught  a  touch  of  sadness, 

Yet  it  is  not  sad  ; 
It  hath  tones  of  clearest  gladness, 

Yet  it  is  not  glad  ; 
A  dim,  sweet  twilight  voice  it  is 

Where  to-day's  accustomed  blue 
Is  over-grayed  with  memories, 

"With  starry  feelings  quivered  through. 

Thy  voice  is  like  a  fountain 
Leaping  up  in  sunshine  bright, 

And  I  never  weary  counting 
Its  clear  droppings,  lone  and  single, 
Or  when  in  one  full  gush  they  mingle, 

Shooting  in  melodious  light. 

Thine  is  music  such  as  yields 
Feelings  of  old  brooks  and  fields, 
And,  around  this  pent-up  room, 
Sheds  a  woodland,  free  perfume  ; 

0,  thus  forever  sing  to  me ! 
0,  thus  forever ! 
The  green,  bright  grass  of  childhood 
bring  to  me, 
Flowing  like  an  emerald  river, 
And  the  bright  blue  skies  above  ! 
0,  sing  them  back,  as  fresh  as  ever, 
Into  the  bosom  of  my  love,  — 
The  sunshine  and  the  merriment, 
The  unsought,  evergreen  content, 

Of  that  never  cold  time, 
The  joy,  that,  like  a  clear  breeze,  went 

Through  and  through  the  old  time  ! 

Peace  sits  within  thine  eyes, 

"With  white  hands  crossed  in  joyful  rest, 


THE  MOON.  —  SONG. 


9 


While,  through  thy  lips  and  face,  arise 
The  melodies  from  out  thy  breast ; 

She  sits  and  sings, 

With  folded  wings 

And  white  arms  crost, 
"Weep  not  for  bygone  things, 

They  are  not  lost : 
The  beauty  which  the  summer  time 
O'er  thine  opening  spirit  shed, 
The  forest  oracles  sublime 
That  filled  thy  soul  with  joyous  dread, 
The  scent  of  every  smallest  flower 
That  made  thy  heart  sweet  for  an 

hour,  — 
Yea,  every  holy  influence, 
Flowing  to  thee,  thou  knewest  not 

whence, 
In  thine  eyes  to-day  is  seen, 
Fresh  as  it  hath  ever  been  ; 
Promptings   of  Nature,  beckonings 
sweet, 

Whatever  led  thy  childish  feet, 
Still  will  linger  unawares 
The  guiders  of  thy  silver  hairs  ; 
Every  look  and  every  word 
Which  thou  givest  forth  to-day, 
Tell  of  the  singing  of  the  bird 
Whose  music  stilled  thy  boyish  play. " 

Thy  voice  is  like  a  fountain, 
Twinkling  up  in  sharp  starlight, 
When  the  moon  behind  the  mountain 
Dims  the  low  East  with  faintest  white, 
Ever  darkling, 
Ever  sparkling, 
We  know  not  if  't  is  dark  or  bright ; 
But,  when  the  great  moon  hath  rolled 
round, 

And,  sudden-slow,  its  solemn  power 
Grows  from  behind  its  black,  clear-edged 
bound, 

No  spot  of  dark  the  fountain  keepeth, 
But,  swift  as  opening  eyelids,  leapeth 
Into  a  waving  silver  flower. 


THE  MOON". 

My  soul  was  like  the  sea, 

Before  the  moon  was  made, 
Moaning  in  vague  immensity, 

Of  its  own  strength  afraid, 

Unrestful  and  unstaid. 
Through  every  rift  it  foamed  in  vain, 

About  its  earthly  prison, 
Seeking  some  unknown  thing  in  pain, 
And  sinking  restless  back  again, 


For  yet  no  moon  had  risen  : 
Its  only  voice  a  vast  dumb  moan, 

Of  utterless  anguish  speaking, 
It  lay  unhope fully  alone, 

And  lived  but  in  an  aimless  seeking. 

So  was  my  soul ;  but  when 't  was  full 

Of  unrest  to  o'erloading, 
A  voice  of  something  beautiful 

Whispered  a  dim  foreboding, 
And  yet  so  soft,  so  sweet,  so  low, 
It  had  not  more  of  joy  than  woe ; 
And,  as  the  sea  doth  oft  lie  still, 

Making  its  waters  meet, 
As  if  by  an  unconscious  will, 

For  the  moon's  silver  feet, 
So  lay  my  soul  within  mine  eyes 
When  thou,  its  guardian  moon,  didst  rise. 

And  now,  howe'er  its  waves  above 
May  toss  and  seem  uneaseful, 

One  strong,  eternal  law  of  Love, 
With  guidance  sure  and  peaceful, 

As  calm  and  natural  as  breath, 

Moves  its  great  deeps  through  life  and 
death. 


REMEMBERED  MUSIC. 

A  FRAGMENT. 

Thick-hushing,  like  an  ocean  vast 
Of  bisons  the  far  prairie  shaking, 
The  notes  crowd  heavily  and  fast 
As  surfs,  one  plunging  while  the  last 
Draws  seaward  from  its  foamy  breaking. 

Or  in  low  murmurs  they  began, 
Rising  and  rising  momently, 

As  o'er  a  harp  iEolian 

A  fitful  breeze,  until  they  ran 
Up  to  a  sudden  ecstasy. 

And  then,  like  minute-drops  of  rain 

Ringing  in  water  silverly, 
They  lingering  dropped  and  dropped 
again, 

Till  it  was  almost  like  a  pain 

To  listen  when  the  next  would  be. 


SONG. 
TO  M.  L. 

A  lily  thou  wast  when  I  saw  thee  first, 
A  lily-bud  not  opened  quite, 
That  hourly  grew  more  pure  and 
white, 


10 


EARLIER  POEMS. 


By  morning,  and  noontide,  and  evening 
nursed  : 

In  all  of  nature  thou  hadst  thy  share  ; 
Thou  wast  waited  on 
By  the  wind  and  sun  ; 

The  rain  and  the  dew  for  thee  took  care  ; 

It  seemed  thou  never  couldst  be  more 
fair. 

A  lily  thou  wast  when  I  saw  thee  first, 
A  lily-bud ;  but  0,  how  strange, 
How  full  of  wonder  was  the  change, 
When,  ripe  with  all  sweetness,  thy  full 
bloom  burst ! 
How  did  the  tears  to  my  glad  eyes  start, 
When  the  woman-flower 
Reached  its  blossoming  hour, 
And  I  saw  the  warm  deeps  of  thy 
golden  heart ! 

Glad  death  may  pluck  thee,  but  never 
before 

The  gold  dust  of  thy  bloom  divine 
Hath  dropped  from  thy  heart  into 
mine, 

To  quicken  its  faint  germs  of  heavenly 
lore  ; 

For  no  breeze  comes  nigh  thee  but  car- 
ries away 
Some  impulses  bright 
Of  fragrance  and  light, 
"Which  fall  upon  souls  that  are  lone 

and  astray, 
To  plant  fruitful  hopes  of  the  flower  of 
day. 

ALLEGRA. 

I  "would  more  natures  were  like  thine, 
That  never  casts  a  glance  before,  — 

Thou  Hebe,  who  thy  heart's  bright  wine 
So  lavishly  to  all  dost  pour, 

That  we  who  drink  forget  to  pine, 
And  can  but  dream  of  bliss  in  store. 

Thou  canst  not  see  a  shade  in  life  ; 

With  sunward  instinct  thou  dost  rise, 
And,  leaving  clouds  below  at  strife, 

Gazest  undazzled  at  the  skies, 
With  all  their  blazing  splendors  rife, 

A  songful  lark  with  eagle's  eyes. 

Thou  wast  some  foundling  whom  the 
Hours 

Nursed,  laughing,  with  the  milk  of 
Mirth  ; 

Some  influence  more  gay  than  ours 
Hath  ruled  thy  nature  from  its  birth, 


As  if  thy  natal  stars  were  flowers 

That  shook  their  seeds  round  thee  on 
earth. 

And  thou,  to  lull  thine  infant  rest, 
Wast  cradled  like  an  Indian  child  ; 

All  pleasant  winds  from  south  and  west 
With  lullabies  thine  ears  beguiled, 

Rocking  thee  in  thine  oriole's  nest, 
Till  Nature  looked  at  thee  and  smiled. 

Thine  every  fancy  seems  to  borrow 
A  sunlight  from  thy  childish  years, 

Making  a  golden  cloud  of  sorrow, 
A  hope-lit  rainbow  out  of  tears,  — 

Thy  heart  is  certain  of  to-morrow, 
Though  'yond  to-day  it  never  peers. 

I  would  more  natures  were  like  thine, 
So  innocently  wild  and  free, 

Whose  sad  thoughts,  even,  leap  and  shine, 
Like  sunny  wavelets  in  the  sea, 

Making  us  mindless  of  the  brine, 
In  gazing  on  the  brilliancy. 


THE  FOUNTAIN. 

Into  the  sunshine, 

Full  of  the  light, 
Leaping  and  flashing 

From  morn  till  night ! 

Into  the  moonlight, 
'Whiter  than  snow, 

Waving  so  flower-like 
When  the  winds  blow  ! 

Into  the  starlight 
Rushing  in  spray, 

Happy  at  midnight, 
Happy  by  day  ! 

Ever  in  motion, 

Blithesome  and  cheery, 
Still  climbing  heavenward, 

Never  aweary  :  — 

Glad  of  all  weathers, 
Still  seeming  best, 

Upward  or  downward, 
Motion  thy  rest ;  — 

Full  of  a  nature 
Nothing  can  tame, 

Changed  every  moment, 
Ever  the  same  ;  — 


ODE. 


11 


Ceaseless  aspiring, 

Ceaseless  content, 
Darkness  or  sunshine 

Thy  element ;  — 

Glorious  fountain  ! 

Let  my  heart  be 
Fresh,  changeful,  constant, 

Upward,  like  thee  ! 


ODE. 
I. 

In  the  old  days  of  awe  and  .keen-eyed 
wonder, 

The  Poet's  song  with  blood-warm  truth 
was  rife  ; 

He  saw  the  mysteries  which  circle  under 
The  outward  shell  and  skin  of  daily  life. 
Nothing  to  him  were  fleeting  time  and 
fashion, 

His  soul  was  led  by  the  eternal  law  ; 
There  was  in  him  no  hope  of  fame,  no 
passion, 

But  with  calm,  godlike  eyes  he  only 
saw. 

He  did  not  sigh  o'er  heroes  dead  and 
buried, 

Chief-mourner  at  the  Golden  Age's 
hearse, 

Nor  deem  that  souls  whom  Charon  grim 
had  ferried 
Alone  were  fitting  themes  of  epic  verse  : 

He  could  believe  the  promise  of  to- 
morrow, 

And  feel  the  wondrous  meaning  of  to- 
day ; 

He  had  a  deeper  faith  in  holy  sorrow 
Than  the  world's  seeming  loss  could 

take  away. 
To  know  the  heart  of  all  things  was  his 

duty, 

All  things  did  sing  to  him  to  make  him 
wise, 

And,  with  a  sorrowful  and  conquering 
beauty, 

The  soul  of  all  looked  grandly  from  his 
eyes. 

He  gazed  on  all  within  him  and  without 
him, 

He  watched  the  flowing  of  Time's  steady 
tide, 

And  shapes  of  glory  floated  all  about 
him 

And  whispered  to  him,  and  he  prophe- 
sied. 


Than  all  men  he  more  fearless  was  and 
freer, 

And  all  his  brethren  cried  with  one 
accord,  — 

"  Behold  the  holy  man!     Behold  the 
Seer  ! 

Him  who  hath  spoken  with  the  unseen 
Lord  !  " 

He  to  his  heart  with  large  embrace  had 
taken 

The  universal  sorrow  of  mankind, 
And,  from  that  root,  a  shelter  never 
shaken, 

The  tree  of  wisdom  grew  with  sturdy 
rind. 

He  could  interpret  well  the  wondrous 
voices 

Which  to  the  calm  and  silent  spirit 
come  ; 

He  knew  that  the  One  Soul  no  more 
rejoices 

In  the  star's  anthem  than  the  insect's 
hum. 

He  in  his  heart  was  ever  meek  and 
humble, 

And  yet  with  kingly  pomp  his  num- 
bers ran, 

As  he  foresaw  how  all  things  false  should 
crumble 

Before  the  free,  uplifted  soul  of  man  : 
And,  when  he  was  made  full  to  overflow- 
ing 

With  all  the  loveliness  of  heaven  and 
earth, 

Out  rushed  his  song,  like  molten  iron 
glowing, 

To  show  God  sitting  by  the  humblest 
hearth. 

With  calmest  courage  he  was  ever  ready 
To  teach  that  action  was  the  truth  of 
thought, 

And,  with  strong  arm  and  purpose  firm 
and  steady, 
An  anchor  for  the  drifting  world  he 
wrought. 

So  did  he  make  the  meanest  man  par- 
taker 

Of  all  his  brother-gods  unto  him 
gave  ; 

All  souls  did  reverence  him  and  name 
him  Maker, 
And  when  he  died  heaped  temples  on 
his  grave. 

And  still  his  deathless  words  of  light  are 
swimming 
Serene  throughout  the  great  deep  in- 
finite 


12  EARLIER 

Of  human  soul,  unwaning  and  undim- 
ming, 

To  cheer  and  guide  the  mariner  at 
night. 

II. 

But  now  the  Poet  is  an  empty  rhymer 

Who  lies  with  idle  elbow  on  the  grass, 
And  fits  his  singing,  like  a  cunning 
timer, 

To  all  men's  prides  and  fancies  as  they 
pass. 

Not  his  the  song,  which,  in  its  metre 
holy, 

Chimes  with  the  music  of  the  eternal 
stars, 

Humbling   the   tyrant,  lifting  up  the 
lowly, 

And  sending  sun  through  the  soul's 
prison-bars. 
Maker    no    more,  —  0  no  !  unmaker 
rather, 

For  he  unmakes  who  doth  not  all  put 
forth 

The  power  given  freely  by  our  loving 
Father 

To  show  the  body's  dross,  the  spirit's 
worth. 

Awake  !  great  spirit  of  the  ages  olden  ! 
Shiver  the  mists  that  hide  thy  starry 
lyre, 

And  let  man's  soul  be  yet  again  beholden 
To  thee  for  wings  to  soar  to  her  desire. 
0,  prophesy  no  more  to-morrow's  splen- 
dor, 

Be  no  more  shamefaced  to  speak  out 
for  Truth, 

Lay  on  her  altar  all  the  gushings  tender, 
The  hope,  the  fire,  the  loving  faith  of 
youth ! 

O,  prophesy  no  more  the  Maker's  com- 
ing* 

Say  not  his  onward  footsteps  thou 
canst  hear 
In  the  dim  void,  like  to  the  awful  hum- 
ming 

Of  the  great  wings  of  some  new-light- 
ed sphere  ! 
0,  prophesy  no  more,  but  be  the  Poet ! 
This  longing  was  but  granted  unto 
thee 

That,  when  all  beauty  thou  couldst  feel 
and  know  it, 
That  beauty  in  its  highest  thou  couldst 
be. 

0  thou  who  moanest  tost  with  sealike 
longings, 


POEMS. 

Who  dimly  nearest  voices  call  on  thee, 
Whose  soul  is  overfilled  with  mighty 
throngings 
Of  love,  and  fear,  and  glorious  agony, 
Thou  of  the  toil-strung  hands  and  iron 
sinews 

And  soul  by  Mother  Earth  with  free- 
dom fed, 

In  whom  the  hero- spirit  yet  continues, 
The  old  free  nature  is  not  chained  or 
dead, 

Arouse  !  let  thy  soul  break  in  music- 
thunder, 

Let  loose  the  ocean  that  is  in  thee, 
pent, 

Pour  forth  thy  hope,  thy  fear,  thy  love, 

thy  wonder, 
And  tell  the  age  what  all  its  signs 

have  meant. 
Where'er  thy  wildered  crowd  of  brethren 

jostles, 

Where'er  there  lingers  but  a  shadow  of 
wrong, 

There  still  is  need  of  martyrs  and  apos- 
tles, 

There  still  are  texts  for  never-dying 
song : 

From  age  to  age  man's  still '  aspiring 
spirit 

Finds  wider  scope  and  sees  with  clearer 

eyes, 

And  thou  in  larger  measure  dost  inherit 
What  made  thy  great  forerunners  free 
and  wise. 

Sit  thou  enthroned  where  the  Poet's 
mountain 

Above  the  thunder  lifts  its  silent 
peak, 

And  roll  thy  songs  down  like  a  gathering 
fountain, 

They  all  may  drink  and  find  the  rest 
they  seek. 

Sing !  there  shall  silence  grow  in  earth 

and  heaven, 
A  silence  of  deep  awe  and  wondering ; 
For,  listening  gladly,  bend  the  angels, 

even, 

To  hear  a  mortal  like  an  angel  sing, 
in. 

Among  the  toil-worn  poor  my  soul  is 

seeking 

For  one  to  bring  the  Maker's  name  to 
light, 

To  be  the  voice  of  that  almighty  speak- 
ing 


THE  FATHERLAND. 


13 


Which  every  age  demands  to  do  it 
right. 

Proprieties  our  silken  bards  environ ; 
He  who  would  be  the  tongue  of  this 
wide  land 

Must  string  his  harp  with  chords  of 
sturdy  iron 
And  strike  it  with  a  toil-imbrowned 
hand ; 

One  who  hath  dwelt  with  Nature  well 
attended, 

Who  hath  learnt  wisdom  from  her 
mystic  books, 
Whose  soul  with  all  her  countless  lives 
hath  blended, 
So  that  all  beauty  awes  us  in  his  looks  ; 
Who  not  with  body's  waste  his  soul  hath 
pampered, 
Who  as  the  clear  northwestern  wind  is 
free, 

Who  walks  with  Form's  observances  un- 
hampered, 
And  follows  the  One  Will  obediently ; 
Whose  eyes,  like  windows  on  a  breezy 
summit, 

Control  a  lovely  prospect  every  way  ; 
Who  doth  not  sound  God's  sea  with 

earthly  plummet, 
And  find  a  bottom  still  of  worthless 

clay; 

Who  heeds  not  how  the  lower  gusts  are 
working, 

Knowing  that  one  sure  wind  blows  on 
above, 

And  sees,  beneath  the  foulest  faces  lurk- 
ing, 

One  God-built  shrine  of  reverence  and 
love  ; 

Who  sees  all  stars  that  wheel  their  shin- 
ing marches 
Around  the  centre  fixed  of  Destiny, 
Where  the  encircling  soul  serene  o'er- 
arches 

The  moving  globe  of  being  like  a  sky  ; 
Who  feels  that  God  and  Heaven's  great 

deeps  are  nearer 
Him  to  whose  heart  his  fellow-man  is 

nigh, 

Who  doth  not  hold  his  soul's  own  free- 
dom dearer 
Than  that  of  all  his  brethren,  low  or 
high  ; 

Who  to  the  Right  can  feel  himself  the 
truer 

For  being  gently  patient  with  the 
wrong, 

Who  sees  a  brother  in  the  evil-doer, 


And  finds  in  Love  the  heart' s-blood  of 
his  song ;  — 
This,  this  is  he  for  whom  the  world  is 
waiting 

To  sing  the  beatings  of  its  mighty 
heart, 

Too  long  hath  it  been  patient  with  the 
grating 

Of  scrannel-pipes,  and  heard  it  mis- 
named Art. 
To  him  the  smiling  soul  of  man  shall 
listen, 

Laying  awhile  its  crown  of  thorns 
aside, 

And  once  again  in  every  eye  shall  glisten 

The  glory  of  a  nature  satisfied. 
His  verse  shall  have  a  great  command- 
ing motion, 
Heaving  and  swelling  with  a  melody 
Learnt  of  the  sky,  the  river,  and  the 
ocean, 

And  all  the  pure,  majestic  things  that 
be. 

Awake,  then,  thou  !  we  pine  for  thy 
great  presence 
To  make  us  feel  the  soul  once  more 
sublime, 

We  are  of  far  too  infinite  an  essence 
To  rest  contented  with  the  lies  of 
Time. 

Speak  out  !  and  lo  !  a  hush  of  deepest 
wonder 

Shall  sink  o'er  all  this  many-voiced 
scene, 

As  when  a  sudden  burst  of  rattling 
thunder 

Shatters  the  blueness  of  a  sky  serene. 


THE  FATHERLAND. 

Where  is  the  true  man's  fatherland  ? 

Is  it  where  he  by  chance  is  born  ? 

Doth  not  the  yearning  spirit  scorn 
In  such  scant  borders  to  be  spanned  ? 
0  yes  !  his  fatherland  must  be 
As  the  blue  heaven  wide  and  free  ! 

Is  it  alone  where  freedom  is, 

Where  God  is  God  and  man  is  man  ? 

Doth  he  not  claim  a  broader  span 
For  the  soul's  love  of  home  than  this  ? 
O  yes  !  his  fatherland  must  be 
As  the  blue  heaven  wide  and  free  ! 

Where'er  a  human  heart  doth  wear 
Joy's  myrtle -wTreath  or  sorrow's  gyves, 


14 


EARLIER  POEMS. 


"Where'er  a  human  spirit  strives 
After  a  life  more  true  and  fair, 
There  is  the  true  man's  birthplace  grand, 
His  is  a  world-wide  fatherland ! 

Where'er  a  single  slave  doth  pine, 

Where'er  one  man  may  help  an- 
other, — 

Thank  God  for  such  a  birthright, 
brother,  — 
That  spot  of  earth  is  thine  and  mine  ! 
There  is  the  true  man's  birthplace  grand, 
His  is  a  world-wide  fatherland  ! 


THE  FORLORN. 

The  night  is  dark,  the  stinging  sleet, 
Swept  by  the  bitter  gusts  of  air, 

Drives  whistling  down  the  lonely  street, 
And  stiffens  on  the  pavement  bare. 

The  street-lamps  flare  and  struggle  dim 
Through  the  white  sleet- clouds  as  they 
pass, 

Or,  governed  by  a  boisterous  whim, 
Drop  down  and  rattle  on  the  glass. 

One  poor,  heart-broken,  outcast  girl 
Faces  the  east- wind's  searching  flaws, 

And,  as  about  her  heart  they  whirl, 
Her  tattered  cloak  more  tightly  draws. 

The  flat  brick  walls  look  cold  and  bleak, 
Her  bare  feet  to  the  sidewalk  freeze ; 

Yet  dares  she  not  a  shelter  seek, 

Though  faint  with  hunger  and  disease. 

The  sharp  storm  cuts  her  forehead  bare, 
And,  piercing  through  her  garments 
thin, 

Beats  on  her  shrunken  breast,  and  there 
Makes  colder  the  cold  heart  within. 

She  lingers  where  a  ruddy  glow 

Streams  outward   through  an  open 
shutter, 

Adding  more  bitterness  to  woe, 
More  loneness  to  desertion  utter. 

One  half  the  cold  she  had  not  felt 
Until  she  saw  this  gush  of  light 

Spread  warmly  forth,  and  seem  to  melt 
Its  slow  way  through  the  deadening 
night. 

She  hears  a  woman's  voice  within, 
Singing  sweet  words  her  childhood 
knew, 


And  years  of  misery  and  sin 

Furl  off,  and  leave  her  heaven  blue. 

Her  freezing  heart,  like  one  who  sinks 
Outwearied  in  the  drifting  snow, 

Drowses  to  deadly  sleep  and  thinks 
No  longer  of  its  hopeless  woe  : 

Old  fields,  and  clear  blue  summer  days, 
Old  meadows,  green  with  grass  and 
trees, 

That  shimmer  through  the  trembling 

haze 

And  whiten  in  the  western  breeze,  — 

Old  faces,  —  all  the  friendly  past 
Rises  within  her  heart  again, 

And  sunshine  from  her  childhood  cast 
Makes  summer  of  the  icy  rain. 

Enhaloed  by  a  mild,  warm  glow, 

From  all  humanity  apart, 
She  hears  old  footsteps  wandering  slow 

Through  the  lone  chambers  of  the 
heart. 

Outside  the  porch  before  the  door, 
Her  cheek  upon  the  cold,  hard  stone, 

She  lies,  no  longer  foul  and  poor, 
No  longer  dreary  and  alone. 

Next  morning  something  heavily 
Against  the  opening  door  did  weigh, 

And  there,  from  sin  and  sorrow  free, 
A  woman  on  the  threshold  lay. 

A  smile  upon  the  wan  lips  told 
That  she  had  found  a  calm  release, 

And  that,  from  out  the  want  and  cold, 
The  song  had  borne  her  soul  in  peace. 

For,  whom  the  heart  of  man  shuts  out, 
Sometimes  the  heart  of  God  takes  in, 

And  fences  them  all  round  about 

With  silence  mid  the  world's  loud  din ; 

And  one  of  his  great  charities 
Is  Music,  and  it  doth  not  scorn 

To  close  the  lids  upon  the  eyes 
Of  the  polluted  and  forlorn  ; 

Far  was  she  from  her  childhood's  home, 
Farther  in  guilt  had  wandered  thence, 

Yet  thither  it  had  bid  her  come 
To  die  in  maiden  innocence. 


MIDNIGHT.  —  THE  HERITAGE. 


15 


MIDNIGHT. 

The  moon  shines  white  and  silent 
On  the  mist,  which,  like  a  tide 

Of  some  enchanted  ocean, 

O'er  the  wide  marsh  doth  glide, 

Spreading  its  ghost-like  billows 
Silently  far  and  wide. 

A  vagne  and  starry  magic 
Makes  all  things  mysteries, 

And  hires  the  earth's  dumb  spirit 
Up  to  the  longing  skies,  — 

I  seern  to  hear  dim  whispers, 
And  tremulous  replies. 

The  fireflies  o'er  the  meadow 

In  pulses  come  and  go  ; 
The  elm-trees'  heavy  shadow 

Weighs  on  the  grass  below  ; 
And  faintly  from  the  distance 

The  dreaming  cock  doth  crow. 

All  things  look  strange  and  mystic, 

The  very  bushes  swell 
And  take  wild  shapes  and  motions, 

As  if  beneath  a  spell,  — 
They  seem  not  the  same  lilacs 

From  childhood  known  so  well. 

The  snow  of  deepest  silence 
O'er  everything  doth  fall, 

So  beautiful  and  quiet, 
And  yet  so  like  a  pall,  — 

As  if  all  life  were  ended, 
And  rest  were  come  to  all. 

0  wild  and  wondrous  midnight, 
There  is  a  might  in  thee 

To  make  the  charmed  body 
Almost  like  spirit  be, 

And  give  it  some  faint  glimpses 
Of  immortality  ! 


A  PRAYER. 

God  !  do  not  let  my  loved  one  die, 
But  rather  wait  until  the  time 

That  I  am  grown  in  purity 

Enough  to  enter  thy  pure  clime, 

Then  take  me,  I  will  gladly  go, 

So  that  my  love  remain  below  ! 

0,  let  her  stay  !    She  is  by  birth 

What  I  through  death  must  learn  to 
be  ; 


We  need  her  more  on  our  poor  eartji 
Than  thou  canst  need  in  heaven  with 
thee  : 

She  hath  her  wings  already,  I 
Must  burst  this  earth -shell  ere  I  fly. 

Then,  God,  take  me  !  We  shall  be  near, 
More  near  than  ever,  each  to  each: 

Her  angel  ears  will  find  more  clear 
My  heavenly  than  my  earthly  speech  ; 

And  still,  as  I  draw  nigh  to  thee, 

Her  soul  and  mine  shall  closer  be. 


THE  HERITAGE. 

The  rich  man's  son  inherits  lands, 
And  piles  of  brick,  and  stone,  and 
gold, 

And  he  inherits  soft  white  hands, 
And  tender  flesh  that  fears  the  cold, 
Nor  dares  to  wear  a  garment  old ; 

A  heritage,  it  seems  to  me, 

One  scarce  would  wish  to  hold  in  fee. 

The  rich  man's  son  inherits  cares  ; 

The  bank  may  break,  the  factory  burn, 
A  breath  may  burst  his  bubble  shares, 

And  soft  white  hands  could  hardly 
earn 

A  living  that  would  serve  his  turn  ; 
A  heritage,  it  seems  to  me, 
One  scarce  would  wish  to  hold  in  fee. 

The  rich  man's  son  inherits  wants, 
His  stomach  craves  for  dainty  fare  ; 

With  sated  heart,  he  hears  the  pants 
Of  toiling  hinds  with  brown  arms  bare, 
And  wearies  in  his  easy-chair  ; 

A  heritage,  it  seems  to  me, 

One  scarce  would  wish  to  hold  in  fee. 

What  doth  the  poor  man's  son  inherit  ? 
Stout  muscles  and  a  sinewy  heart, 

A  hardy  frame,  a  hardier  spirit  ; 
King  of  two  hands,  he  does  his  part 
In  every  useful  toil  and  art ; 

A  heritage,  it  seems  to  me, 

A  king  might  wish  to  hold  in  fee. 

What  doth  the  poor  man's  son  inherit  ? 
Wishes  o'erjoyed  with  humble  things, 

A  rank  adjudged  by  toil-won  merit, 
Content  that  from  employment  springs, 
A  heart  that  in  his  labor  sings ; 

A  heritage,  it  seems  to  me, 

A  king  might  wish  to  hold  in  fee. 


16  EARLIER 

What  doth  the  poor  man's  son  inherit  ? 
A  patience  learned  of  being  poor, 

Courage,  if  sorrow  come,  to  bear  it, 
A  fellow-feeling  that  is  sure 
To  make  the  outcast  bless  his  door ; 

A  heritage,  it  seems  to  me, 

A  king  might  wish  to  hold  in  fee. 

O  rich  man's  son  !  there  is  a  toil 
That  with  all  others  level  stands  ; 

Large  charity  doth  never  soil, 

But  only  whiten,  soft  white  hands,  — 
This  is  the  best  crop  from  thy  lands ; 

A  heritage,  it  seems  to  be, 

Worth  being  rich  to  hold  in  fee. 

O  poor  man's  son  !  scorn  not  thy  state  ; 
There  is  worse  weariness  than  thine, 

In  merely  being  rich  and  great ; 
Toil  only  gives  the  soul  to  shine, 
And  makes  rest  fragrant  and  be- 
nign  ; 

A  heritage,  it  seems  to  me, 
Worth  being  poor  to  hold  in  fee. 

Both,  heirs  to  some  six  feet  of  sod, 
Are  equal  in  the  earth  at  last ; 

Both,  children  of  the  same  dear  God, 
Prove  title  to  your  heirship  vast 
By  record  of  a  well-filled  past ; 

A  heritage,  it  seems  to  me, 

Well  worth  a  life  to  hold  in  fee. 


THE  ROSE :  A  BALLAD. 
I. 

In  his  tower  sat  the  poet 

Gazing  on  the  roaring  sea, 
"Take  this  rose,"  he  sighed,  "and  throw 
it 

Where  there 's  none  that  loVeth  me. 
On  the  rock  the  billow  bursteth 

And  sinks  back  into  the  seas, 
But  in  vain  my  spirit  thirsteth 

So  to  burst  and  be  at  ease. 
Take,  0  sea  !  the  tender  blossom 

That  hath  lain  against  my  breast ; 
On  thy  black  and  angry  bosom 

It  will  find  a  surer  rest. 
Life  is  vain,  and  love  is  hollow, 

Ugly  death  stands  there  behind, 
Hate  and  scorn  and  hunger  follow 

Him  that  toileth  for  his  kind." 
Forth  into  the  night  he  hurled  it, 

And  with  bitter  smile  did  mark 
How  the  surly  tempest  whirled  it 

Swift  into  the  hungry  dark. 


POEMS. 

Foam  and  spray  drive  back  to  leeward, 
And  the  gale,  with  dreary  moan, 

Drifts  the  helpless  blossom  seaward, 
Through  the  breakers  all  alone. 

II. 

Stands,  a  maiden,  on  the  morrow, 

Musing  by  the  wave-beat  strand, 
Half  in  hope  and  half  in  sorrow, 

Tracing  words  upon  the  sand: 
"  Shall  I  ever  then  behold  him 

Who  hath  been  my  life  so  long,  — 
Ever  to  this  sick  heart  fold  him,  — 

Be  the  spirit  of  his  song  ? 
Touch  not,  sea,  the  blessed  letters 

I  have  traced  upon  thy  shore, 
Spare  his  name  whose  spirit  fetters 

Mine  with  love  forevermore  !  " 
Swells  the  tide  and  overflows  it, 

But,  with  omen  pure  and  meet, 
Brings  a  little  rose,  and  throws  it 

Humbly  at  the  maiden's  feet. 
Full  of  bliss  she  takes  the  token, 

And,  upon  her  snowy  breast, 
Soothes  the  ruffled  petals  broken 

With  the  ocean's  fierce  unrest. 
"  Love  is  thine,  0  heart  !  and  surely 

Peace  shall  also  be  thine  own, 
For  the  heart  that  trusteth  purely 

Never  long  can  pine  alone." 

in. 

In  his  tower  sits  the  poet, 

Blisses  new  and  strange  to  him 
Fill  his  heart  and  overflow  it 

With  a  wronder  sweet  and  dim. 
Up  the  beach  the  ocean  slideth. 

With  a  whisper  of  delight, 
And  the  moon  in  silence  glideth 

Through  the  peaceful  blue  of  night. 
Rippling  o'er  the  poet's  shoulder 

Flows  a  maiden's  golden  hair, 
Maiden  lips,  with  love  grown  bolder, 

Kiss  his  moon-lit  forehead  bare. 
"  Life  is  joy,  and  love  is  power, 

Death  all  fetters  doth  unbind, 
Strength  and  wisdom  only  flower 

When  we  toil  for  all  our  kind. 
Hope  is  truth,  —  the  future  giveth 

More  than  present  takes  away, 
And  the  soul  forever  liveth 

Nearer  God  from  day  to  day." 
Not  a  word  the  maiden  uttered, 

Fullest  hearts  are  slow  to  speak, 
But  a  withered  rose-leaf  fluttered 

Down  upon  the  poet's  cheek. 


SONG. 


ROSALINE. 


17 


SONG. 

Violet  !  sweet  violet  ! 
Thine  eyes  are  full  of  tears  ; 
Are  they  wet 
Even  yet 
With  the  thought  of  other  years  ? 
Or  with  gladness  are  they  full, 
For  the  night  so  beautiful, 
And  longing  for  those  far-off  spheres  ? 

Loved  one  of  my  youth  thou  wast, 
Of  my  merry  youth, 
And  I  see, 
Tearfully, 
All  the  fair  and  sunny  past, 
All  its  openness  and  truth, 
Ever  fresh  and  green  in  thee 
As  the  moss  is  in  the  sea. 

Thy  little  heart,  that  hath  with  love 
Grown  colored  like  the  sky  above, 
On  which  thou  lookest  ever,  — 
Can  it  know 
All  the  woe 
Of  hope  for  what  returneth  never, 
All  the  sorrow  and  the  longing 
To  these  hearts  of  ours  belonging  ? 

Out  on  it  !  no  foolish  pining 

For  the  sky 

Dims  thine  eye, 
Or  for  the  stars  so  calmly  shining  ; 
Like  thee  let  this  soul  of  mine 
Take  hue  from  that  wherefor  I  long, 
Self-stayed  and  high,  serene  and  strong, 
Not  satisfied  with  hoping  —  but  divine. 

Violet !  dear  violet ! 

Thy  blue  eyes  are  only  wet 
With  joy  and  love  of  Him  who  sent  thee, 
And  for  the  fulfilling  sense 
Of  that  glad  obedience 
Which  made  thee  all  that  Nature  meant 
thee  ! 

ROSALINE. 

Thou  look'dst  on  me  all  yesternight, 
Thine  eyes  were  blue,  thy  hair  was  bright 
As  when  we  murmured  our  troth -plight 
Beneath  the  thick  stars,  Rosaline  ! 
Thy  hair  was  braided  on  thy  head, 
As  on  the  day  we  two  were  wed, 
Mine  eyes  scarce  knew  if  thou  wert  dead,  — 
But  my  shrunk  heart  knew,  Rosaline  ! 

2 


The  death-watch  ticked  behind  the  wall, 
The  blackness  rustled  like  a  pall, 
The  moaning  wind  did  rise  and  fall 
Among  the  bleak  pines,  Rosaline  ! 
My  heart  beat  thickly  in  mine  ears  : 
The  lids  may  shut  out  fleshly  fears, 
But  still  the  spirit  sees  and  hears,  — 
Its  eyes  are  lidless,  Rosaline  ! 

A  wildness  rushing  suddenly, 

A  knowing  some  ill  shape  is  nigh, 

A  wish  for  death,  a  fear  to  die,  — 

Is  not  this  vengeance,  Rosaline  ? 

A  loneliness  that  is  not  lone, 

A  love  quite  withered  up  and  gone, 

A  strong  soul  trampled  from  its  throne,  — 

What  wouldst  thou  further,  Rosaline  ? 

'T  is  drear  such  moonless  nights  as  these, 
Strange  sounds  are  out  upon  the  breeze, 
And  the  leaves  shiver  in  the  trees, 
And  then  thou  comest,  Rosaline  ! 
I  seem  to  hear  the  mourners  go, 
With  long  black  garments  trailing  slow, 
And  plumes  anodding  to  and  fro, 
As  once  I  heard  them,  Rosaline  ! 

Thy  shroud  is  all  of  snowy  white, 
And,  in  the  middle  of  the  night, 
Thou  standest  moveless  and  upright, 
Gazing  upon  me,  Rosaline  ! 
There  is  no  sorrow  in  thine  eyes, 
But  evermore  that  meek  surprise, — 

0  God  !  thy  gentle  spirit  tries 
To  deem  me  guiltless,  Rosaline  ! 

Above  thy  grave  the  robin  sings, 

And  swarms  of  bright  and  happy  things 

Flit  all  about  with  sunlit  wings,  — 

But  I  am  cheerless,  Rosaline  ! 

The  violets  on  the  hillock  toss, 

The  gravestone  is  o'ergrown  with  moss  ; 

For  nature  feels  not  any  loss,  — 

But  I  am  cheerless,  Rosaline  ! 

1  did  not  know  when  thou  wast  dead  ; 
A  blackbird  whistling  overhead 
Thrilled  through  my  brain  ;  I  would  have 

fled, 

But  dared  not  leave  thee,  Rosaline  ! 
The  sun  rolled  down,  and  very  soon, 
Like  a  great  fire,  the  awful  moon 
Rose,  stained  with  blood,  and  then  a  swoon 
Crept  chilly  o'er  me,  Rosaline  ! 

The  stars  came  out ;  and,  one  by  one, 
Each  angel  from  his  silver  throne 


18 


EARLIER  POEMS. 


Looked  down  and  saw  what  I  had  done : 

I  dared  not  hide  me,  Rosaline  ! 

I  crouched ;  I  feared  thy  corpse  would  cry 

Against  me  to  God's  quiet  sky, 

I  thought  I  saw  the  blue  lips  try 

To  utter  something,  Rosaline  ! 

I  waited  with  a  maddened  grin 
To  hear  that  voice  all  icy  thin 
Slide  forth  and  tell  my  deadly  sin 
To  hell  and  heaven,  Rosaline  ! 
But  no  voice  came,  and  then  it  seemed, 
That,  if  the  very  corpse  had  screamed, 
The  sound  like  sunshine  glad  had  streamed 
Through  that  dark  stillness,  Rosaline  ! 

And  then,  amid  the  silent  night, 

I  screamed  with  horrible  delight, 

And  in  my  brain  an  awful  light 

Did  seem  to  crackle,  Rosaline  ! 

It  is  my  curse  !  sweet  memories  fall 

From  me  like  snow,  —  and  only  all 

Of  that  one  night,  like  cold  worms,  crawl 

My  doomed  heart  over,  Rosaline  ! 

Why  wilt  thou  haunt  me  with  thine  eyes, 
Wherein  such  blessed  memories, 
Such  pitying  forgiveness  lies, 
Than  hate  more  bitter,  Rosaline  ! 
Woe  's  me  !  I  know  that  love  so  high 
As  thine,  true  soul,  could  never  die, 
And  with  mean  clay  in  churchyard  lie,  — 
Would  it  might  be  so,  Rosaline  ! 


A  REQUIEM. 

Ay,  pale  and  silent  maiden, 

Cold  as  thou  liest  there, 
Thine  was  the  sunniest  nature 

That  ever  drew  the  air, 
The  wildest  and  most  wayward, 

And  yet  so  gently  kind, 
Thou  seemedst  but  to  body 

A  breath  of  summer  wind. 

Into  the  eternal  shadow 

That  girds  our  life  around, 
Into  the  infinite  silence 

Wherewith  Death's  shore  is  bound, 
Thou  hast  gone  forth,  beloved  ! 

And  I  were  mean  to  weep, 
That  thou  hast  left  Life's  shallows, 

And  dost  possess  the  Deep. 

Thou  liest  low  and  silent, 
Thy  heart  is  cold  and  still, 


Thine  eyes  are  shut  forever, 
And  Death  hath  had  his  will  ; 

He  loved  and  would  have  taken, 
I  loved  and  would  have  kept, 

We  strove,  —  and  he  was  stronger, 
And  I  have  never  wept. 

Let  him  possess  thy  body, 

Thy  soul  is  still  with  me, 
More  sunny  and  more  gladsome 

Than  it  was  wont  to  be  : 
Thy  body  was  a  fetter 

That  bound  me  to  the  flesh, 
Thank  God  that  it  is  broken, 

And  now  I  live  afresh ! 

Now  I  can  see  thee  clearly ; 

The  dusky  cloud  of  clay, 
That  hid  thy  starry  spirit, 

Is  rent  and  blown  away: 
To  earth  I  give  thy  body, 

Thy  spirit  to  the  sky, 
I  saw  its  bright  wings  growing, 

And  knew  that  thou  must  fly. 

Now  I  can  love  thee  truly, 

For  nothing  comes  between 
The  senses  and  the  spirit, 

The  seen  and  the  unseen  ; 
Lifts  the  eternal  shadow, 

The  silence  bursts  apart, 
And  the  soul's  boundless  future 

Is  present  in  my  heart. 


A  PARABLE. 

Worn  and  footsore  was  the  Prophet, 
When  he  gained  the  holy  hill ; 

"  God  has  left  the  earth,"  he  murmured, 
' '  Here  his  presence  lingers  still. 

"  God  of  all  the  olden  prophets, 
Wilt  thou  speak  with  men  no  more  ? 

Have  I  not  as  truly  served  thee 
As  thy  chosen  ones  of  yore  ? 

"  Hear  me,  guider  of  my  fathers, 
Lo  !  a  hivmble  heart  is  mine  ; 

By  thy  mercy  I  beseech  thee 
Grant  thy  servant  but  a  sign  !  " 

Bowing  then  his  head,  he  listened 
For  an  answer  to  his  prayer  ; 

No  loud  burst  of  thunder  followed, 
Not  a  murmur  stirred  the  air :  — 


SONG.  —  SONNETS. 


19 


But  the  tuft  of  moss  before  him 

Opened  while  he  waited  yet, 
And,  from  out  the  rock's  hard  bosom, 

Sprang  a  tender  violet. 

' 1  God !  I  thank  thee, "  said  the  Prophet ; 

"  Hard  of  heart  and  blind  was  I, 
Looking  to  the  holy  mountain 

For  the  gift  of  prophecy. 

"Still  thou  speakest  with  thy  children 

Freely  as  in  eld  sublime ; 
Humbleness,  and  love,  and  patience, 

Still  give  empire  over  time. 

"  Had  I  trusted  in  my  nature, 

And  had  faith  in  lowly  things, 
Thou  thyself  wouldst  then  have  sought 
me, 

And  set  free  my  spirit's  wings. 

"  But  I  looked  for  signs  and  wonders, 
That  o'er  men  should  give  me  sway ; 

Thirsting  to  be  more  than  mortal, 
I  was  even  less  than  clay. 

"Ere  I  entered  on  my  journey, 

As  I  girt  my  loins  to  start, 
Ran  to  me  my  little  daughter, 

The  beloved  of  my  heart ;  — 


"  In  her  hand  she  held  a  flower, 
Like  to  this  as  like  may  be, 

Which,  beside  my  very  threshold, 
She  had  plucked  and  brought  to  me.1 


SONG. 

0  moonlight  deep  and  tender, 

A  year  and  more  agone, 
Your  mist  of  golden  splendor 

Round  my  betrothal  shone  ! 

0  elm-leaves  dark  and  dewy, 

The  very  same  ye  seem, 
The  low  wind  trembles  through  ye, 

Ye  murmur  in  my  dream  ! 

0  river,  dim  with  distance, 

Flow  thus  forever  by, 
A  part  of  my  existence 

Within  your  heart  doth  lie  ! 

0  stars,  ye  saw  our  meeting, 
Two  beings  and  one  soul, 

Two  hearts  so  madly  beating 
To  mingle  and  be  whole  ! 

0  happy  night,  deliver 

Her  kisses  back  to  me, 
Or  keep  them  all,  and  give  her 

A  blissful  dream  of  me ! 


SONNETS, 


i. 

TO  A.  C.  L. 

Through  suffering  and  sorrow  thou  hast 
passed 

To  show  us  what  a  woman  true  may  be : 
They  have  not  taken  sympathy  from  thee, 
Nor  made  thee  any  other  than  thou  wast, 
Save  as  some  tree,  which,  in  a  sudden 
blast, 

Sheddeth  those  blossoms,  that  are  weakly 
grown, 

Upon  the  air,  but  keepeth  every  one 
Whose  strength  gives  warrant  of  good 

fruit  at  last  : 
So  thou  hast  shed  some  blooms  of  gay- 

ety, 

But  never  one  of  steadfast  cheerfulness  ; 


Nor  hath  thy  knowledge  of  adversity 
Robbed  thee  of  any  faith  in  happiness, 
But  rather  cleared  thine  inner  eyes  to  see 
How  many  simple  ways  there  are  to  bless. 

II. 

What  were  I,  Love,  if  I  were  stripped  of 
thee, 

If  thine  eyes  shut  me  out  whereby  I  live, 
Thou,  who  unto  my  calmer  soul  dost  give 
Knowledge,  and  Truth,  and  holy  Mys- 
tery, 

Wherein  Truth  mainly  lies  for  those  who 
see 

Beyond  the  earthly  and  the  fugitive, 
Who  in  the  grandeur  of  the  soul  believe, 
And  only  in  the  Infinite  are  free  ? 


20 


EARLIER  POEMS. 


"Without  thee  I  were  naked,  bleak,  and 

bare 

As  yon  dead  cedar  on  the  sea-cliff's  brow  ; 
And  Nature's  teachings,  which  come  to 
me  now, 

Common  and  beautiful  as  light  and  air, 
Would  be  as  fruitless  as  a  stream  which 
still 

Slips  through  the  wheel  of  some  old 
ruined  mill. 

III. 

I  would  not  have  this  perfect  love  of 
ours 

Grow  from  a  single  root,  a  single  stem, 
Bearing  no  goodly  fruit,  but  only  flowers 
That  idly  hide  life's  iron  diadem  : 
It  should  grow  alway  like  that  Eastern 
tree 

"Whose  limbs  take  root  and  spread  forth 

constantly  ; 
That  love  for  one,  from  which  there  doth 

not  spring 
"Wide  love  for  all,  is  "but  a  worthless  thing. 
Not  in  another  world,  as  poets  prate, 
Dwell  we  apart  above  the  tide  of  things, 
High  floating  o'er  earth's  clouds  on  faery 

wings  ; 

But  our  pure  love  doth  ever  elevate 
Into  a  holy  bond  of  brotherhood 
All  earthly  things,  making  them  pure 
and  good. 

IV. 

"  For  this  true  nobleness  I  seek  in  vain, 
In  woman  and  in  man  I  find  it  not ; 
I  almost  weary  of  my  earthly  lot, 
My  life-springs  are  dried  up  with  burn- 
ing pain." 
Thou  find'st  it  not  ?    I  pray  thee  look 
again, 

Look  inward  through  the  depths  of  thine 
owii  soul. 

How  is  it  with  thee  ?    Art  thou  sound 

and  whole  ? 
Doth  narrow  search  show  thee  no  earthly 

stain  ? 

Be  noble  !  and  the  nobleness  that  lies 
In  other  men,  sleeping,  but  never  dead, 
Will  rise  in  majesty  to  meet  thine  own  ; 
Then  wilt  thou  see  it  gleam  in  many  eyes, 
Then  will  pure  light  around  thy  path  be 
shed, 

And  thou  wilt  nevermore  be  sad  and 
lone. 


V. 

TO  THE  SPIRIT  OF  KEATS. 

Great  soul,  thou  sittest  with  me  in  my 
room, 

Uplifting  me  with  thy  vast,  quiet  eyes, 
On  whose  full  orbs,  with  kindly  lustre,  lies 
The  twilight  warmth  of  ruddy  ember- 
gloom  : 

Thy  clear,  strong  tones  will  oft  bring  sud- 
den bloom 
Of  hope  secure,  to  him  who  lonely  cries, 
Wrestling  with  the  young  poet's  agonies, 
Neglect  and  scorn,  which  seem  a  certain 
doom : 

Yes!  the  few  words  which,  like  great 

thunder-drops, 
Thy  large  heart  down  to  earth  shook 

doubtfully, 
Thrilled  by  the  inward  lightning  of  its 

might, 

Serene  andpure,  like  gushing  joy  of  light, 
Shall  track  the  eternal  chords  of  Destiny, 
After  the  moon-led  pulse  of  ocean  stops. 

VI. 

Great  Truths  are  portions  of  the  soul  of 
man  ; 

Great  souls  are  portions  of  Eternity  ; 
Each  drop  of  blood  that  e'er  through  true 
heart  ran 

With  lofty  message,  ran  for  thee  and  me ; 
For  God's  law,  since  the  starry  song  began, 
Hath  been,  and  still  forevermore  must  be, 
That  eveiy  deed  which  shall  outlast  Time's 
span 

Must  goad  the  soul  to  be  erect  and  free  ; 
Slave  is  no  word  of  deathless  lineage 

sprung,  — 
Too  many  noble  souls  have  thought  and 

died, 

Too  many  mighty  poets  lived  and  sung, 
And  our  good  Saxon,  from  lips  purified 
With  maftyr-fire,  throughout  the  world 
hath  rung 

Too  long  to  have  God's  holy  cause  denied. 
VII. 

I  agk  not  for  those  thoughts,  that  sudden 
leap 

From  being's  sea,  like  the  isle-seeming 
Kraken, 

With  whose  great  rise  the  ocean  all  is 
shaken 


SONNETS. 


21 


And  a  heart-tremble  quivers  through  the 
deep  ; 

Give  me  that  growth  which  some  per- 
chance deem  sleep, 

"Wherewith  the  steadfast  coral-stems  up- 
rise, 

"Which,  by  the  toil  of  gathering  energies, 
Their  upward  way  into  clear  sunshine 
keep, 

Until,  by  Heaven's  sweetest  influences, 
Slowly  and  slowly  spreads  a  speck  of 
green 

Into  a  pleasant  island  in  the  seas, 
"Where,  mid  tall  palms,  the  cane -roofed 

home  is  seen, 
And  wearied  men  shall  sit  at  sunset's 

hour, 

Hearing  the  leaves  and  loving  God's  dear 
power. 

VIII. 

TO  M.  W.,  ON  HER  BIRTHDAY. 

Maiden,  when  such  a  soul  as  thine  is 
born, 

The  morning-stars  their  ancient  music 
make, 

And,  joyful,  once  again  their  song  awake, 
Long  silent  now  with  melancholy  scorn  ; 
And  thou,  not  mindless  of  so  blest  a 
morn, 

By  no  least  deed  its  harmony  shalt  break, 
But  shalt  to  that  high  chime  thy  foot- 
steps take, 
Through  life's  most  darksome  passes  un- 
forlorn ; 

Therefore  from  thy  pure  faith  thou  shalt 
not  fall, 

Therefore  shalt  thou  be  ever  fair  and 
free, 

And  in  thine  every  motion  musical 
As  summer  air,  majestic  as  the  sea, 
A  mystery  to  those  who  creep  and  crawl 
Through  Time,  and  part  it  from  Eternity. 


IX. 

My  Love,  I  have  no  fear  that  thou 

shouldst  die  ; 
Albeit  I  ask  no  fairer  life  than  this, 
Whose  numbering-clock  is  still  thy  gen- 
tle kiss, 

"While  Time  and  Peace  with  hands  en- 
locked  fly,  — 
Yet  care  I  not  where  in  Eternity 


"We  live  and  love,  well  knowing  that 

there  is 

No  backward  step  for  those  who  feel  the 
bliss 

Of  Faith  as  their  most  lofty  yearnings 
high: 

Love  hath  so  purified  my  being's  core, 
Meseems  I  scarcely  should  be  startled, 
even, 

To  find,  some  morn,  that  thou  hadst  gone 
before  ; 

Since,  with  thy  love,  this  knowledge  too 

was  given, 
Which  each  calm  day  doth  strengthen 

more  and  more, 
That  they  who  love  are  but  one  step  from 

Heaven. 

X. 

I  cannot  think  that  thou  shouldst  pass 
away, 

Whose  life  to  mine  is  an  eternal  law, 
A  piece  of  nature  that  can  have  no  flaw, 
A  new  and  certain  sunrise  every  day ; 
But,  if  thou  art  to  be  another  ray 
About  the  Sun  of  Life,  and  art  to  live 
Free  from  all  of  thee  that  was  fugitive, 
The  debt  of  Love  I  will  more  fully  pay, 
Not  downcast  with  the  thought  of  thee 
so  high, 

But  rather  raised  to  be  a  nobler  man, 
And  more  divine  in  my  humanity, 
As  knowing  that  the  waiting  eyes  which 
scan 

My  life  are  lighted  by  a  purer  being, 
And  ask  meek,  calm-browed  deeds,  with 
it  agreeing. 


XI. 

There  never  yet  was  flower  fair  in  vain, 
Let  classic  poets  rhyme  it  as  they  will  ; 
The  seasons  toil  that  it  may  blow  again, 
And  summer's  heart  doth  feel  its  every  ill ; 
Nor  is  a  true  soul  ever  born  for  naught ; 
Wherever  any  such  hath  lived  and  died, 
There  hath  been  something  for  true  free- 
dom wrought, 
Some  bulwark  levelled  on  the  evil  side  : 
Toil  on,  then,  Greatness  !  thou  art  in  the 
right, 

However  narrow  souls  may  call  thee 
wrong  ; 

Be  as  thou  wouldst  be  in  thine  own  clear 
sight, 


22  EARLIER  POEMS.' 


And  so  thou  slialt  be  in  the  world's  ere- 
long ; 

For  worldlings  cannot,  struggle  as  they 
may, 

From  man's  great  soul  one  great  thought 
hide  away. 

XII. 

SUB  PONDERE  CRESCIT. 

The  hope  of  Truth  grows  stronger,  day 
by  day  ; 

I  hear  the  soul  of  Man  around  me  wak- 
ing* 

Like  a  great  sea,  its  frozen  fetters  break- 
ing, 

And  flinging  up  to  heaven  its  sunlit  spray, 
Tossing  huge   continents   in  scornful 
play, 

And  crushing  them,  with  din  of  grind- 
ing thunder, 

That  makes  old  emptinesses  stare  in  won- 
der ; 

The  memory  of  a  glory  passed  away 
Lingers  in  every  heart,  as,  in  the  shell, 
Resounds  the  bygone  freedom  of  the  sea, 
And  every  hour  new  signs  of  promise 
tell, 

That  the  great  soul  shall  once  again  be 
free, 

For  high,  and  yet  more  high,  the  mur- 
murs swell 
Of  inward  strife  for  truth  and  liberty. 

XIII. 

Beloved,  in  the  noisy  city  here, 
The  thought  of  thee  can  make  all  tur- 
moil cease  ; 
Around  my  spirit,  folds  thy  spirit  clear 
Its  still,  soft  arms,  and  circles  it  with 
peace  ; 

There  is  no  room  for  any  doubt  or  fear 
In  souls  so  overfilled  with  love's  increase, 
There  is  no  memory  of  the  bygone  year 
But  growth  in  heart's  and  spirit's  perfect 
ease  : 

How  hath  our  love,  half  nebulous  at  first, 
Rounded  itself  into  a  full-orbed  sun  ! 
How  have  our  lives  and  wills  (as  haply 
erst 

They  were,  ere  this  forgetfulness  begun) 
Through  all  their  earthly  distantness  out- 
burst, 

And  melted,  like  two  rays  of  light  in 
one ! 


XIV. 

ON  READING  WORDSWORTH'S  SONNETS 
IN  DEFENCE  OF  CAPITAL  PUNISHMENT. 

As  the  broad  ocean  endlessly  upheaveth, 
With  the  majestic  beating  of  his  heart, 
The  mighty  tides,  whereof  its  rightful 
part 

Each  sea-wide  bay  and  little  weed  re- 

ceiveth,  — 
So,  through  his  soul  who  earnestly  be- 

lieveth, 

Life  from  the  universal  Heart  doth  flow, 
Whereby  some  conquest  of  the  eternal 
Woe, 

By  instinct  of  God's  nature,  he  achiev- 
eth: 

A  fuller  pulse  of  this  all-powerful  beauty 
Into  the  poet's  gulf-like  heart  doth  tide, 
And  he  more  keenly  feels  the  glorious 
duty 

Of  serving  Truth,  despised  and  cruci- 
fied, — 

Happy,  unknowing  sect  or  creed,  to  rest, 
And  feel  God  flow  forever  through  his 
breast. 

XV. 

THE  SAME  CONTINUED. 

Once  hardly  in  a  cycle  blossometh 
A  flower-like  soul  ripe  with  the  seeds  of 
.  .song> 

A  spirit  foreordained  to  cope  with  wrong, 
Whose  divine  thoughts  are  natural  as 
breath, 

Who  the  old  Darkness  thickly  scattereth 
With  starry  words,  that  shoot  prevailing 
light 

Into  the  deeps,  and  wither,  with  the  blight 
Of  serene  Truth,  the  coward  heart  of 
Death : 

Woe,  if  such  spirit  thwart  its  errand  high, 
And  mock  with  lies  the  longing  soul  of 
man ! 

Yet  one  age  longer  must  true  Culture  lie, 
Soothing  her  bitter  fetters  as  she  can, 
Until  new  messages  of  love  outstart 
At  the  next  beating  of  the  infinite  Heart. 

XVI. 

THE  SAME  CONTINUED. 

The  love  of  all  things  springs  from  love 
of  one ; 

Wider  the  soul's  horizon  hourly  grows, 


SONNETS. 


23 


And  over  it  with  fuller  glory  flows 
The  sky-like  spirit  of  God ;  a  hope  begun 
In  doubt  and  darkness  'neath  a  fairer  sun 
Cometh  to  fruitage,  if  it  be  of  Truth ; 
And  to  the  law  of  meekness,  faith,  and 
ruth, 

By  inward  sympathy,  shall  all  be  won  : 
This  thou  shouldst  know,  who,  from  the 

painted  feature 
Of  shifting  Fashion,  couldst  thy  brethren 

turn 

Unto  the  love  of  ever-youthful  Nature, 
And  of  a  beauty  fadeless  and  eterne ; 
And  always  't  is  the  saddest  sight  to  see 
An  old  man  faithless  in  Humanity. 


XVII. 

THE  SAME  CONTINUED. 

A  poet  cannot  strive  for  despotism ; 
His  harp  falls  shattered ;  for  it  still  must 
be 

The  instinct  of  great  spirits  to  be  free, 
And  the  sworn  foes  of  cunning  barba- 
rism : 

He  who  has  deepest  searched  the  wide 
abysm 

Of  that  life-giving  Soul  which  men  call 
fate, 

Knows  that  to  put  more  faith  in  lies  and 
hate 

Than  truth  and  love  is  the  true  atheism : 
Upward  the  soul  forever  turns  her  eyes  : 
The  next  hour  always  shames  the  hour 
before ; 

One  beauty,  at  its  highest,  prophesies 
That  by  whose  side  it  shall  seem  mean 
and  poor 

No  Godlike  thing  knows  aught  of  less 
and  less, 

But  widens  to  the  boundless  Perfectness. 


XVIII. 

THE  SAME  CONTINUED. 

Therefore  think  not  the  Past  is  wise 
alone, 

For  Yesterday  knows  nothing  of  the  Best, 
And  thou  shalt  love  it  only  as  the  nest 
Whence  glory- winged  things  to  Heaven 

have  flown : 
To  the  great  Soul  alone  are  all  things 

known ; 

Present  and  future  are  to  her  as  past, 


While  she  in  glorious  madness  doth  fore- 
cast 

That  perfect  bud,  which  seems  a  flower 

full-blown 
To  each  new  Prophet,  and  yet  always  opes 
Fuller  and  fuller  with  each  day  and  hour, 
Heartening  the  soul  with  odor  of  fresh 

hopes, 

And  longings  high,  and  gushings  of  wide 
power, 

Yet  never  is  or  shall  be  fully  blown 
Save  in  the  forethought  of  the  Eternal 
One. 

XIX. 

THE  SAME  CONTINUED. 

Far  'ycmd  this  narrow  parapet  of  Time, 
With  eyes  uplift,  the  poet's  soul  should 
look 

Into  the  Endless  Promise,  nor  should 
brook 

One  prying  doubt  to  shake  his  faith  sub- 
lime ; 

To  him  the  earth  is  ever  in  her  prime 
And  dewiness  of  morning  ;  he  can  see 
Good  lying  hid,  from  all  eternity, 
Within  the  teeming  womb  of  sin  and 
crime ; 

His  soul  should  not  be  cramped  by  any  bar, 
His  nobleness  should  be  so  Godlike  high, 
That  his  least  deed  is  perfect  as  a  star, 
His  common  look  majestic  as  the  sky, 
And  all  o'erflooded  with  a  light  from  far, 
Undimmed  by  clouds  of  weak  mortality. 


XX. 
TO  M.  O.  S. 

Mary,  since  first  I  knew  thee,  to  this 
hour, 

My  love  hath  deepened,  with  my  wiser 
sense 

Of  what  in  Woman  is  to  reverence ; 
Thy  clear  heart,  fresh  as  e'er  was  forest- 
flower, 

Still  opens  more  to  me  its  beauteous 
dower  ;  — 

But  let  praise  hush,  —  Love  asks  no  evi- 
dence 

To  prove  itself  well-placed ;  we  know  not 
whence 

It  gleans  the  straws  that  thatch  its  humble 
bower : 

We  can  but  say  we  found  it  in  the  heart, 


24 


EARLIER  POEMS. 


Spring  of  all  sweetest  thoughts,  arch  foe 

of  blame, 
Sower  of  flowers  in  the  dusty  mart, 
Pure  vestal  of  the  poet's  holy  flame, — 
This  is  enough,  and  we  have  done  our 

part 

If  we  but  keep  it  spotless  as  it  came. 


XXI. 

Our  love  is  not  a  fading,  earthly  flower: 
Its  winged  seed   dropped  down  from 
Paradise, 

And,  nursed  by  day  and  night,  by  sun 

and  shower, 
Doth  momently  to  fresher  beauty  rise : 
To  us  the  leafless  autumn  is  not  bare, 
Nor  winter's  rattling  boughs  lack  lusty 

green. 

Our  summer  hearts  make  summer's  ful- 
ness, where 
No  leaf,  or  bud,  or  blossom  may  be  seen  : 
For  nature's  life  in  love's  deep  life  doth 
lie, 

Love,  —  whose  forgetfulness  is  beauty's 
death, 

Whose  mystic  key  these  cells  of  Thou 
and  I 

Into  the  infinite  freedom  openeth, 
And  makes  the  body's  dark  and  narrow 
grate 

The  wind-flung  leaves  of  Heaven's  pal- 
ace-gate. 

XXII. 

IN  ABSENCE. 

These  rugged,  wintry  days  I  scarce 

could  bear, 
Did  I  not  know,  that,  in  the  early  spring, 
When  wild   March  winds  upon  their 

errands  sing, 
Thou  wouldst  return,  bursting  on  this 

still  air, 

Like  those  same  winds,  when,  startled 

from  their  lair, 
They  hunt  up  violets,  and  free  swift 

brooks 

From  icy  cares,  even  as  thy  clear  looks 
Bid  my  heart  bloom,  and  sing,  and  break 
all  care  : 

When   drops  with  welcome  rain  the 

April  day, 
My  flowers  shall  find  their  April  in  thine 

eyes, 


Save  there  the  rain  in  dreamy  clouds 
doth  stay, 

As  loath  to  fall  out  of  those  happy  skies  ; 
Yet  sure,  my  love,  thou  art  most  like  to 
May, 

That  comes  with  steady  sun  when  April 
dies. 

XXIII. 

WENDELL  PHILLIPS. 

He  stood   upon   the   world's  broad 

threshold  ;  wide 
The  din  of  battle  and  of  slaughter  rose  ; 
He  saw  God  stand  upon  the  weaker  side, 
That  sank  in  seeming  loss  before  its  foes  : 
Many  there  were  who  made  great  haste 

and  sold 

Unto  the  cunning  enemy  their  swords, 
He  scorned  their  gifts  of  fame,  and 

power,  and  gold, 
And,  underneath  their  soft  and  flowery 

words, 

Heard  the  cold  serpent  hiss  ;  therefore 
he  went 

And  humbly  joined  him  to  the  weaker 
part, 

Fanatic  named,  and  fool,  yet  well  con- 
tent 

So  he  could  be  the  nearer  to  God's  heart, 
And  feel  its  solemn  pulses  sending  blood 
Through  all  the  wide-spread  veins  of 
endless  good. 


xxrv. 

THE  STREET. 

They  pass  me  by  like  shadows,  crowds 

on  crowds, 
Dim  ghosts  of  men,  that  hover  to  and  fro, 
Hugging  their  bodies  round  them  like 

thin  shrouds 
Wherein  their  souls  were  buried  long  ago  : 
They  trampled  on  their  youth,  and  faith, 

and  love, 

They  cast  their  hope  of  human  -kind  away, 
With  Heaven's  clear  messages  they  madly 
strove, 

And  con  que  red,  —  and  their  spirits  turned 
to  clay  : 

Lo  !  how  they  wander  round  the  world, 

their  grave, 
Whose  ever-gaping  maw  by  such  is  fed, 
Gibbering  at  living  men,  and  idly  rave, 
"We,  only,  truly  live,  but  ye  are  dead." 


SONNETS. 


25 


Alas  !  poor  fools,  the  anointed  eye  may 
trace 

A  dead  soul's  epitaph  in  every  face  ! 


XXV. 

I  grieve  not  that  ripe  Knowledge  takes 
away 

The  charm  that  Nature  to  my  childhood 
wore, 

For,  with  that  insight,  cometh,  day  by 
day, 

A  greater  bliss  than  wonder  was  before  ; 
The  real  doth  not  clip  the  poet's  wings,  — 
To  win  the  secret  of  a  weed's  plain  heart 
Reveals  some  clew  to  spiritual  things, 
And  stumbling  guess  becomes  firm-footed 
art : 

Flowers  are  not  flowers  unto  the  poet's 
eyes, 

Their  beauty  thrills  him  by  an  inward 
sense ; 

He  knows  that  outward  seemings  are  but 
lies, 

Or,  at  the  most,  but  earthly  shadows, 
whence 

The  soul  that  looks  within  for  truth  may 
guess 

The  presence  of  some  wondrous  heaven- 
liness. 

XXVI. 

TO  J.  R.  GIDDINGS. 

Giddings,  far  rougher  names  than  thine 

have  grown 
Smoother  than  honey  on  the  lips  of  men  ; 
And  thou  shalt  aye  be  honorably  known, 
As  one  who  bravely  used  his  tongue  and 

pen, 

As  best  befits  a  freeman,  —  even  for 
those 

To  whom  our  Law's  unblushing  front 
denies 

A  right  to  plead  against  the  lifelong 
woes 

Which  are  the  Negro's  glimpse  of  Free- 
dom's skies  : 

Fear  nothing,  and  hope  all  things,  as 
the  Right 

Alone  may  dp  securely  ;  every  hour 

The  thrones  of  Ignorance  and  ancient 
Night 

Lose  somewhat  of  their  long-usurped 
power, 


And  Freedom's  lightest  word  can  make 

them  shiver 
With  a  base  dread  that  clings  to  them 
forever. 

xxvn. 

I  thought  our  love  at  full,  but  I  did  err ; 

Joy's  wreath  drooped  o'er  mine  eyes  ;  I 
could  not  see 

That  sorrow  in  our  happy  world  must  be 

Love's  deepest  spokesman  and  inter- 
preter : 

But,  as  a  mother  feels  her  child  first  stir 
Under  her  heart,  so  felt  I  instantly 
Deep  in  my  soul  another  bond  to  thee 
Thrill  with  that  life  we  saw  depart  from 
her  ; 

0  mother  of  our  angel  child  !  twice  dear ! 
Death  knits  as  well  as  parts,  and  still, 
I  wis, 

Her  tender  radiance  shall  infold  us  here, 
Even  as  the  light,  borne  up  by  inward 
bliss, 

Threads  the  void  glooms  of  space  with- 
out a  fear, 

To  print  on  farthest  stars  her  pitying  kiss. 
L'ENVOL 

Whether  my  heart  hath  wiser  grown 
or  not, 

In  these  three  years,  since  I  to  thee  in- 
scribed, 

Mine  own  betrothed,  the  firstlings  of  my 
muse,  — 

Poor  windfalls  of  unripe  experience, 
Young  buds  plucked  hastily  by  childish 
hands 

Not  patient  to  await  more  full-blown 

flowers,  — 
At  least  it  hath  seen  more  of  life  and 

men, 

And  pondered  more,  and  grown  a  shade 
more  sad  ; 

Yet  with  no  loss  of  hope  or  settled  trust 
In  the  benignness  of  that  Providence 
Which  shapes  from  out  our  elements 
awry 

The  grace  and  order  that  we  wonder  at, 
The  mystic  harmony  of  right  and  wrong, 
Both  working  out  His  wisdom  and  our 
good : 

A  trust,  Beloved,  chiefly  learned  of  thee, 
Who  hast  that  gift  of  patient  tenderness, 
The  instinctive  wisdom  of  a  woman's 
heart. 


26  EARLIER  POEMS. 


They  tell  us  that  our  land  was  made  for 
song, 

With  its  huge  rivers  and  sky-piercing 
peaks, 

Its  sealike  lakes  and  mighty  cataracts, 
Its  forests  vast  and  hoar,  and  prairies 
wide, 

And  mounds  that  tell  of  wondrous  tribes 
extinct. 

But  Poesy  springs  not  from  rocks  and 
woods  ; 

Her  womb  and  cradle  are  the  human 
heart, 

And  she  can  find  a  nobler  theme  for  song 
In  the  most  loathsome  man  that  blasts 
the  sight 

Than  in  the  broad  expanse  of  sea  and 
shore 

Between  the  frozen  deserts  of  the  poles. 
All  nations  have  their  message  from  on 
high,  > 

Each  the  messiah  of  some  central  thought, 
For  the  fulfilment  and  delight  of  Man : 
One  has  to  teach  that  labor  is  divine  ; 
Another  Freedom  ;  and  another  Mind  ; 
And  all,  that  God  is  open-eyed  and  just, 
The  happy  centre  and  calm  heart  of  all. 

Are,  then,  our  woods,  our  mountains, 

and  our  streams, 
Needful  to  teach  our  poets  how  to  sing? 
O  maiden  rare,  far  other  thoughts  were 

ours, 

"When  we  have  sat  by  ocean's  foaming 
marge, 

And  watched  the  waves  leap  roaring  on 
the  rocks, 

Than  young  Leander  and  his  Hero  had, 
Gazing  from  Sestos  to  the  other  shore. 
The  moon  looks  down  and  ocean  worships 
her, 

Stars  rise  and  set,  and  seasons  come  and  go 
Even  as  they  did  in  Homer's  elder  time, 
But  we  behold  them  not  with  Grecian 
eyes: 

Then  they  were  types  of  beauty  and  of 
strength, 

But  now  of  freedom,  unconfined  and  pure, 
Subject  alone  to  Order's  higher  law. 
What  cares  the  Russian  serf  or  Southern 
slave 

Though  we  should  speak  as  man  spake 
never  yet 

Of  gleaming  Hudson's  broad  magnifi- 
cence, 

Or  green  Niagara's  never-ending  roar? 
Our  country  hath  a  gospel  of  her  own 


To  preach  and  practise  before  all  the 

world,  — 
The  freedom  and  divinity  of  man, 
The  glorious  claims  of  human  brother- 
hood,— 

Which  to  pay  nobly,  as  a  freeman  should, 
Gains  the  sole  wealth  that  will  not  fiy 
away, — 

And  the  soul's  fealty  to  none  but  God. 
These   are  realities,  which  make  the 
shows 

Of  outward  Nature,  be  they  ne'er  so 
grand, 

Seem  small,  and  worthless,  and  contempt- 
ible. 

These  are  the  mountain-summits  for  our 
bards, 

Which  stretch  far  upward  into  heaven 
itself, 

And  give  such  wide-spread  and  exulting 
view 

Of  hope,  and  faith,  and  onward  destiny, 
That  shrunk  Parnassus  to  a  molehill 
dwindles. 

Our  new  Atlantis,  like  a  morning-star, 
Silvers  the  murk  face  of  slow-yielding 
Night, 

The  herald  of  a  fuller  truth  than  yet 
Hath  gleamed  upon  the  upraised  face  of 
Man 

Since  the  earth  glittered  in  her  stainless 
prime,  — ■ 

Of  a  more  glorious  sunrise  than  of  old 
Drew  wondrous  melodies  from  Memnon 
huge, 

Yea,  draws  them  still,  though  now  he  sit 

waist-deep 
In  the  ingulfing  flood  of  whirling  sand, 
And  looks  across  the  wastes  of  endless 

gray, 

Sole  wreck,  where  once  his  hundred-gated 
Thebes 

Pained  with  her  mighty  hum  the  calm, 

blue  heaven  : 
Shall  the  dull  stone  pay  grateful  orisons, 
And  we  till  noonday  bar  the  splendor 

out, 

Lest  it  reproach  and  chide  our  sluggard 
hearts, 

Warm -nestled  in  the  down  of  Prejudice, 
And  be  content,  though  clad  with  angel- 
wings, 

Close-clipped,  to  hop  about  from  perch 
to  perch, 

In   paltry  cages  of  dead  men's  dead 

thoughts  ? 
0,  rather,  like  the  skylark,  soar  and  sing, 


A  LEGEND  OF  BRITTANY. 


27 


And  let  our  gushing  songs  befit  the  dawn 
And  sunrise,  and  the  yet  unshaken  dew 
Brimming  the  chalice  of  each  full-blown 
hope, 

Whose  blithe  front  turns  to  greet  the 

growing  day  ! 
Never  had  poets  such  high  call  before, 
Never  can  poets  hope  for  higher  one, 
And,  if  they  be  but  faithful  to  their  trust, 
Earth  will  remember  them  with  love  and 

And  O,  far  better,  God  will  not  forget. 
For  he  who  settles  Freedom's  principles 
Writes  the  death-warrant  of  all  tyranny ; 
Who  speaks  the  truth  stabs  Falsehood  to 
the  heart, 

And  his  mere  word  makes  despots  tremble 
more 

Than  ever  Brutus  with  his  dagger  could. 
Wait  for  no  hints  from  waterfalls  or 
woods, 

Nor  dream  that  tales  of  red  men,  brute 
and  fierce, 

Repay  the  finding  of  this  Western  World, 
Or  needed  half  the  globe  to  give  them 
birth: 

Spirit  supreme  of  Freedom  !  not  for  this 
Did  great  Columbus  tame  his  eagle  soul 
To  jostle  with  the  daws  that  perch  in 
courts ; 

Not  for  this,  friendless,  on  an  unknown 
sea, 

Coping  with  mad  waves  and  more  muti- 
nous spirits, 

Battled  he  with  the  dreadful  ache  at 
heart 

Which  tempts,  with  devilish  subtleties 
of  doubt, 

The  hermit  of  that  loneliest  solitude, 
The  silent  desert  of  a  great  New  Thought ; 


Though  loud  Niagara  were  to-day  struck 
dumb, 

Yet  would  this  cataract  of  boiling  life 
Rush  plunging  on  and  on  to  endless 
deeps, 

And  utter  thunder  till  the  world  shall 

cease,  — 

A  thunder  worthy  of  the  poet's  song, 
And  which  alone  can  fill  it  with  true  life. 
The  high  evangel  to  our  country  granted 
Could  make  apostles,  yea,  with  tongues 
of  fire, 

Of  hearts  half-darkened  back  again  to 
clay  ! 

'T  is  the  soul  only  that  is  national, 
And  he  who  pays  true  loyalty  to  that 
Alone  can  claim  the  wreath  of  patriotism. 

Beloved  !  if  I  wander  far  and  oft 
From  that  which  I  believe,  and  feel,  and 
know, 

Thou  wilt  forgive,  not  with  a  sorrowing 
heart, 

But  with  a  strengthened  hope  of  better 
things  ; 

Knowing  that  I,  though  often  blind  and 
false 

To  those  I  love,  and  0,  more  false  than 
all 

Unto  myself,  have  been  most  true  to  thee, 
And  that  whoso  in  one  thing  hath  been 
true 

Can  be  as  true  in  all.    Therefore  thy  hope 
May  yet  not  prove  unfruitful,  and  thy  love 
Meet,  day  by  day,  with  less  unworthy 
thanks, 

Whether,  as  now,  we  journey  hand  in 
hand, 

Or,  parted  in  the  body,  yet  are  one 
In  spirit  and  the  love  of  holy  things. 


MISCELLANEOUS  POEMS. 


A  LEGEND  OF  BRITTANY. 

PART  FIRST. 
I. 

Fair  as  a  summer  dream  was  Margaret, — 
Such  dream  as  in  a  poet's  soul  might 
start, 

Musing  of  old  loves  while  the  moon  doth 
set : 


Her  hair  was  not  more  sunny  than  her 
heart, 

Though  like  a  natural  golden  coro- 
net 

It  circled  her  dear  head  with  careless 
art, 

Mocking  the  sunshine,  that  would  fain 
have  lent 

To  its  frank  grace  a  richer  ornament. 


23 


MISCELLANEOUS  POEMS. 


II. 

His  loved  one's  eyes  could  poet  ever 
speak, 

So  kind,  so  dewy,  and  so  deep  were 
hers,  — 

But,  while  he  strives,  the  choicest  phrase, 
too  weak, 

Their  glad  reflection  in  his  spirit  blurs  ; 
As  one  may  see  a  dream  dissolve  and 
break 

Out  of  his  grasp  when  he  to  tell  it  stirs, 
Like  that  sad  Dryad  doomed  no  more  to 
bless 

The  mortal  who  revealed  her  loveliness, 
in. 

She  dwelt  forever  in  a  region  bright, 

Peopled  with  living  fancies  of  her  own, 
"Where  naught  could  come  but  visions  of 
delight, 

Far,  far  aloof  from  earth's  eternal  moan : 
A  summer  cloud  thrilled  through  with 
rosy  light, 

Floating  beneath  the  blue  sky  all  alone, 
Her  spirit  wandered  by  itself,  and  won 
A  golden  edge  from  some  unsetting  sun. 

iv. 

The  heart  grows  richer  that  its  lot  is 
poor,  — 

God  blesses  want  with  larger  sympa- 
thies, — 

Love  enters  gladliest  at  the  humble  door, 
And  makes  the  cot  a  palace  with  his 
eyes ;  — 

So  Margaret's  heart  a  softer  beauty  wore, 
And  grew  in  gentleness  and  patience 
wise, 

For  she  was  but  a  simple  herdsman's 
child, 

A  lily  chance-sown  in  the  rugged  wild, 
v. 

There  was  no  beauty  of  the  wood  or  field 
But  she  its  fragrant  bosom-secret  knew, 

Nor  any  but  to  her  would  freely  yield 
Some  grace  that  in  her  soul  took  root 
and  grew : 

Nature  to  her  glowed  ever  new-revealed, 
All  rosy-fresh  with  innocent  morning 
dew, 

And  looked  into  her  heart  with  dim,  sweet 
eyes 

That  left  it  full  of  sylvan  memories. 


VI. 

0,  what  a  face  was  hers  to  brighten  light, 
And  give  back  sunshine  with  an  added 
glow, 

To  wile  each  moment  with  a  fresh  de- 
light, 

And  part  of  memory's  best  content- 
ment grow  ! 
0,  how  her  voice,  as  with  an  inmate's 
right, 

Into  the  strangest  heart  would  welcome 
go,  ( 

And  make  it  sweet,  and  ready  to  become 
Of  white  and  gracious  thougnts  the  cho- 
sen home  ! 

VII. 

None  looked  upon  her  but  he  straight- 
way thought 
Of  all  the  greenest  depths  of  country 
cheer, 

And  into  each  one's  heart  was  freshly 
brought 

What  was  to  him  the  sweetest  time  of 
year, 

So  was  her  every  look  and  motion  fraught 
With  out-of-door  delights  and  forest 
lere  ; 

Not  the  first  violet  on  a  woodland  lea 
Seemed  a  more  visible  gift  of  Spring  than 
she. 

VIII. 

Is  love  learned  only  out  of  poets'  books  ? 
Is  there  not  somewhat  in  the  dropping 
flood, 

And  in  the  nunneries  of  silent  nooks, 
And  in  the  murmured  longing  of  the 
wood, 

That  could  make  Margaret  dream  of  love- 
lorn looks, 
And  stir  a  thrilling  mystery  in  her 
blood 

More  trembly  secret  than  Aurora's  tear 
Shed  in  the  bosom  of  an  eglatere  ? 

IX. 

Full  many  a  sweet  forewarning  hath  the 
mind, 

Full  many  a  whispering  of  vague  desire, 
Ere  comes  the  nature  destined  to  unbind 
Its  virgin  zone,  and  all  its  deeps  in- 
spire, — 

Low  stirrings  in  the  leaves,  before  the 
wind 

Wake  all  the  green  strings  of  the  for- 
est lyre, 


A  LEGEND  OF  BRITTANY. 


29 


Faint  heatings  in  the  calyx,  ere  the  rose 
Its  warm  voluptuous  breast  doth  all  un- 
close. 

x. 

Long  in  its  dim  recesses  pines  the  spirit, 
Wilderedand  dark,  despairingly  alone  ; 
Though  many  a  shape  of  beauty  wander 
near  it, 

And  many  a  wild  and  half-remembered 
tone 

Tremble  from  the  divine  abyss  to  cheer  it, 
Yet  still  it  knows  that  there  is  only  one 
Before  whom  it  can  kneel  and  tribute 
bring, 

At  once  a  happy  vassal  and  a  king. 

XI. 

To  feel  a  want,  yet  scarce  know  what  it 
is, 

To  seek  one  nature  that  is  always  new, 
Whose  glance  is  warmer  than  another's 
kiss, 

"Whom  we  can  bear  our  inmost  beauty 
to, 

Nor  feel  deserted  afterwards,  —  for  this 
But  with  our  destined  co-mate  we  can 
do,  — 

Such  longing  instinct  fills  the  mighty 
scope 

Of  the  young  soul  with  one  mysterious 
hope. 

XII. 

So  Margaret's  heart  grew  brimming  with 
the  lore 

Of  love's  enticing  secrets;  and  although 
She  had  found  none  to  cast  it  down  be- 
fore, 

Yet  oft  to  Fancy's  chapel  she  would  go 
To  pay  her  vows,  and  count  the  rosary 
o'er 

Of  her  love's  promised  graces :  — haply 
so 

Miranda's  Tiope  had  pictured  Ferdinand 
Long  ere  the  gaunt  wave  tossed  him  on 
the  strand. 

XIII. 

A  new-made  star  that  swims  the  lonely 
gloom, 

Unwedded  yet  and  longing  for  the  sun, 
"Whose  beams,  the  bride -gifts  of  the  lav- 
ish groom, 
Blithely  to  crown  the  virgin  planet 
run, 

Her  being  was,  watching  to  see  the  bloom 


Of  love's  fresh  sunrise  roofing  one  by 
one 

Its  clouds  with  gold,  a  triumph-arch  to  be 
For  him  who  came  to  hold  her  heart  in 
fee. 

xiv. 

Not  far  from  Margaret's  cottage  dwelt  a 
knight 

Of  the  proud  Templars,  a  sworn  celi- 
bate, 

"Whose  heart  in  secret  fed  upon  the  light 
And  dew  of  her  ripe  beauty,  through 
the  grate 

Of  his  close  vow  catching  what  gleams 
he  might 

Of  the  free  heaven,  and  cursing  all  too 
late 

The  cruel  faith  whose  black  walls  hemmed 
him  in 

And  turned  life's  crowning  bliss  to  deadly 
sin. 

xv. 

For  he  had  met  her  in  the  wood  by  chance, 
And,  having  drunk  her  beauty's  wil- 
dering  spell, 
His  heart  shook  like  the  pennon  of  a  lance 
That  quivers  in  a  breeze's  sudden  swell, 
And  thenceforth,  in  a  close-infolded 
trance, 

From  mistily  golden  deep  to  deep  he 
fell  ; 

Till  earth  did  waver  and  fade  far  away 
Beneath  the  hope  in  whose  warm  arms 
he  lay. 

XVI. 

A  dark,  proud  man  he  was,  whose  half- 
blown  youth 
Had  shed  its  blossoms  even  in  opening, 

Leaving  a  few  that  with  more  winning 
ruth 

Trembling  around  grave  manhood's 
stem  might  cling, 
More  sad  than  cheery,  making,  in  good 
sooth, 

Like  the  fringed  gentian,  a  late  autumn 
spring :  — 
A   twilight  nature,  braided  light  and 
gloom, 

A  youth  half-smiling  by  an  open  tomb. 

XVII. 

Fair  as  an  angel,  who  yet  inly  wore 
A  wrinkled  heart  foreboding  his  near 
fall ; 


30 


MISCELLANEOUS  POEMS. 


Who  saw  him  alway  wished  to  know  him 
more, 

As  if  he  were  some  fate's  defiant  thrall 
And  nursed  a  dreaded  secret  at  his  core ; 
Little  he  loved,  but  power  the  most  of 
all, 

And  that  he  seemed  to  scorn,  as  one  who 
knew 

By  what  foul  paths  men  choose  to  crawl 
thereto. 

XVIII. 

He  had  been  noble,  but  some  great  de- 
ceit 

Had  turned  his  better  instinct  to  a 
vice: 

He  strove  to  think  the  world  was  all  a 
cheat, 

That  power  and  fame  were  cheap  at 
any  price, 

That  the  sure  way  of  being  shortly  great 
Was  even  to  play  life's  game  with 

loaded  dice, 
Since  he  had  tried  the  honest  play  and 

found 

That  vice  and  virtue  differed  but  in 
sound. 

XIX. 

Yet  Margaret's  sight  redeemed  him  for  a 
space 

From  his  own  thraldom ;  man  could 
never  be 

A  hypocrite  when  first  such  maiden  grace 
Smiled  in  upon  his  heart ;  the  agony 

Of  wearing  all  day  long  a  lying  face 
Fell  lightly  from  him,  and,  a  moment 
free, 

Erect  with  wakened  faith  his  spirit  stood 
And  scorned  the  weakness  of  his  demon- 
mood. 

xx. 

Like  a  sweet  wind-harp  to  him  was  her 
thought, 

"Which  would  not  let  the  common  air 
come  near, 
Till  from  its  dim  enchantment  it  had 
caught 

A  musical  tenderness  that  brimmed  his 
ear 

"With  sweetness  more  ethereal  than  aught 
Save    silver-dropping   snatches  that 
whilere 

Rained   down  from  some  sad  angel's 

faithful  harp 
To  cool  her  fallen  lover's  anguish  sharp. 


XXI. 

Deep  in  the  forest  was  a  little  dell 

High  overarched  with  the  leafy  sweep 
Of  a  broad  oak,  through  whose  gnarled 
roots  there  fell 
A  slender  rill  that  sung  itself  asleep, 
"Where  its  continuous  toil  had  scooped  a 
well 

To  please  the  fairy  folk  ;  breathlessly 

deep 

The  stillness  was,  save  when  the  dream- 
ing brook 

From  its  small  urn  a  drizzly  murmur 
shook. 

XXII. 

The  wooded  hills  sloped  upward  all 
around 

With  gradual  rise,  and  made  an  even 
rim, 

So  that  it  seemed  a  mighty  casque  un- 
bound 

From  some   huge  Titan's  brow  to 

lighten  him, 
Ages  ago,  and  left  upon  the  ground, 
Where  the  slow  soil  had  mossed  it  to 

the  brim, 

Till  after  countless  centuries  it  grew 
Into  this  dell,  the  haunt  of  noontide  dew. 

XXIII. 

Dim  vistas,  sprinkled  o'er  with  sun- 
flecked  green, 
Wound  through  the  thickset  trunks 
on  every  side, 

And,  toward  the  west,  in  fancy  might  be 
seen 

A  gothic  window  in  its  blazing  pride, 
When  the  low  sun,  two  arching  elms 
between, 

Lit  up  the  leaves  beyond,  which, 
autumn-dyed 
With  lavish  hues,  would  into  splendor 
start, 

Shaming  the  labored  panes  of  richest  art. 

XXTV. 

Here,  leaning  once  against  the  old  oak's 
trunk, 

Mordred,  for  such  was  the  young 
Templar's  name, 
Saw  Margaret  come  ;  unseen,  the  falcon 
shrunk 

From  the  meek  dove  ;  sharp  thrills  of 
tingling  flame 
Made  him  forget  that  he  was  vowed  a 
monk, 


A  LEGEND  OF  BRITTANY. 


31 


And  all  the  outworks  of  his  pride  o'er-  I  xxviii. 

came  :  ,  ,.  .        How  thev  went  home  together  through 

Flooded  he  seemed  with  bright  delicious  ^  WOod, 


pain, 

As  if  a  star  had  burst  within  his  brain. 

XXV. 

Such  power  hath  beauty  and  frank  inno- 
cence : 

A  flower  bloomed  forth,  that  sunshine 
glad  to  bless, 
Even  from  his  love's  long  leafless  stem  ; 
the  sense 

Of  exile  from  Hope's  happy  realm  grew 
less, 

And  thoughts  of  childish  peace,  he  knew 

not  whence, 
Thronged  round  his  heart  with  many 

an  old  caress, 
Melting  the  frost  there  into  pearly 

dew 

That  mirrored  back  his  nature's  morning- 
blue. 


She  turned  and  saw  him,  but  she  felt  no 
dread, 

Her  purity,  like  adamantine  mail, 
Did  so  encircle  her  ;  and  yet  her  head 
She  drooped,  and  made  her  golden  hair 
her  veil, 

Through  which  a  glow  of  rosiest  lustre 
spread, 

Then  faded,  and  anon  she  stood  all 
pale, 

As  snow  o'er  which  a  blush  of  northern- 
light 

Suddenly  reddens,  and  as  soon  grows 
white. 


She  thought  of  Tristrem  and  of  Lanci- 
lot, 

Of  all  her  dreams,  and  of  kind  fai- 
ries' might, 
And  how  that  dell  was  deemed  a  haunted 
spot, 

Until  there  grew  a  mist  before  her 
sight, 

And  where  the  present  was  she  half 
forgot, 

Borne  backward  through  the  realms  of 
old  delight,  — 
Then,  starting  up  awake,  she  would  have 
gone, 

Yet  almost  wished  it  might  not  be 
alone. 


And  how  all  life  seemed  focussed  into 
one 

Thought-dazzling  spot  that  set  ablaze 
the  blood, 
What  need  to  tell  ?  Fit  language  there 
is  none 

For  the  heart's  deepest  things.  Who 
ever  wooed 
As  in  his  boyish  hope  he  would  have 
done? 

For,  when  the  soul  is  fullest,  the  hushed 
tongue 

Yoicelessly  trembles  like  a  lute  unstrung. 

XXIX. 

But  all  things  carry  the  heart's  messages 
And  know  it  not,  nor  doth  the  heart 

well  know, 
But  nature  hath  her  will ;  even  as  the 

bees, 

Blithe  go-betweens,  fly  singing  to  and 
fro 

With  the   fruit-quickening   pollen ;  — 
hard  if  these 
Found  not  some  all  unthought-of  way 
to  show 

Their  secret  each  to  each ;  and  so  they 
did, 

And  one  heart's  flower-dust  into  the  other 
slid. 

XXX. 

Young  hearts  are  free ;  the  selfish  world 
it  is 

That  turns  them  miserly  and  cold  as 
stone, 

And  makes  them  clutch  their  fingers  on 
the  bliss 

Which  but  in  giving  truly  is  their 
own ;  — 

She  had  no  dreams  of  barter,  asked  not 
his, 

But  gave  hers  freely  as  she  would  have 
thrown 

A  rose  to  him,  or  as  that  rose  gives  forth 
Its  generous  fragrance,  thoughtless  of  its 
worth. 

XXXI. 

Her  summer  nature  felt  a  need  to  bless, 
And  a  like  longing  to  be  blest  again ; 

So,  from  her  sky-like  spirit,  gentleness 
Dropt  ever  like  a  sunlit  fall  of  rain, 

And  his  beneath  drank  in  the  bright 
caress 


32 


MISCELLANEOUS  POEMS. 


As  thirstily  as  would  a  parched  plain, 
That  long  hath  watched  the  showers  of 

sloping  gray 
For  ever,  ever,  falling  far  away. 

XXXII. 

How  should  he  dream  of  ill  ?  the  heart 
filled  quite 
"With  sunshine,  like  the  shepherd's- 
clock  at  noon, 
Closes  its  leaves  around  its  warm  delight ; 

Whate'er  in  life  is  harsh  or  out  of  tune 
Is  all  shut  out,  no  boding  shade  of  light 
Can  pierce  the  opiate  ether  of  its 
swoon : 

Love  is  but  blind  as  thoughtful  justice  is, 
But  naught  can  be  so  wanton-blind  as 
bliss. 

XXXIII. 

All  beauty  and  all  life  he  was  to  her  ; 
She  questioned  not  his  love,  she  only 
knew 

That  she  loved  him,  and  not  a  pulse 
could  stir 

In   her  whole  frame  but  quivered 
through  and  through 
With  this  glad  thought,  and  was  a  min- 
ister | 
To  do  him  fealty  and  service  true, 
Like  golden  ripples  hasting  to  the  land 
To  wreck  their  freight  of  sunshine  on  the 
strand. 

xxxiv. 

0  dewy  dawn  of  love  !    0  hopes  that  are 
Hung  high,  like  the  cliff-swallow's 
perilous  nest, 
Most  like  to  fall  when  fullest,  and  that  jar 
With  every  heavier  billow  !   0  unrest 
Than  balmiest  deeps  of  quiet  sweeter  far  ! 
How  did  ye  triumph  now  in  Marga- 
ret's breast, 
Making  it  readier  to  shrink  and  start 
Than  quivering  gold  of  the  pond-lily's 
heart ! 

xxxv. 

Here  let  us  pause  :  0,  would  the  soul 
might  ever 
Achieve  its  immortality  in  youth, 
When  nothing  yet  hath  damped  its  high 
endeavor 
After  the  starry  energy  of  truth  ! 
Here  let  us  pause,  and  for  a  moment  sever 
This  gleam  of  sunshine  from  the  days 
unruth 

That  sometime  come  to  all,  for  it  is  good 
To  lengthen  to  the  last  a  sunny  mood. 


PART  SECOND. 
I. 

As  one  who,  from  the  sunshine  and  the 

green, 

Enters  the  solid  darkness  of  a  cave, 
Nor  knows  what  precipice  or  pit  unseen 
May  yawn  before  him  with  its  sudden 
grave, 

And,  with  hushed  breath,  doth  often  for- 
ward lean, 
Dreaming  he  hears  the  plashing  of  a 
wave 

Dimly  below,  or  feels  a  damper  air 
From  out  some  dreary  chasm,  he  knows 
not  where ;  — 

II. 

So,  from  the  sunshine  and  the  green  of 
love, 

We  enter  on  our  story's  darker  part ; 
And,  though  the  horror  of  it  wTell  may 
move 

.  An  impulse  of  repugnance  in  the  heart, 
Yet  let  us  think,  that,  as  there 's  naught 

above 

The  all-embracing  atmosphere  of  Art, 
So  also  there  is  naught  that  falls  below 
Her  generous  reach,  though  grimed  with 
guilt  and  woe. 

in. 

Her  fittest  triumph  is  to  show  that  good 

Lurks  in  the  heart  of  evil  evermore, 
That  love,  though  scorned,  and  outcast, 
and  withstood, 
Can  without  end  forgive,  and  yet  have 
store  ; 

God's  love  and  man's  are  of  the  selfsame 
blood, 

And  He  can  see  that  always  at  the  door 
Of  foulest  hearts  the  angel-nature  yet 
Knocks  to  return  and  cancel  all  its  debt. 

IV. 

It  ever  is  weak  falsehood's  destiny 
That  her  thick  mask  turns  crystal  to 
let  through 
The  unsuspicious  eyes  of  honesty ; 
But  Margaret's  heart  was  too  sincere 
and  true 

Aught  but  plain  truth  and  faithfulness 

to  see, 

And  Mordred's  for  a  time  a  little  grew 
To  be  like  hers,  wron  by  the  mild  reproof 
Of  those  kind  eyes  that  kept  all  doubt 
aloof. 


A  LEGEND  OF  BRITTANY. 


33 


v. 

Full  oft  they  met,  as  dawn  and  twilight 
meet 

In  northern  climes  ;  she  full  of  grow- 
ing day 

As  he  of  darkness,  which  before  her  feet 
Shrank  gradual,  and  faded  quite  away, 
Soon  to  return ;  for  power  had  made 
love  sweet 
To  him,  and,  when  his  will  had  gained 
full  sway, 

The  taste  began  to  pall ;  for  never  power 
Can  sate  the  hungry  soul  beyond  an  hour. 

VI. 

He  fell  as  doth  the  tempter  ever  fall, 
Even  in  the  gaining  of  his  loathsome 
end ; 

God  doth  not  work  as  man  works,  but 
makes  all 

The  crooked  paths  of  ill  to  goodness 
tend  ; 

Let  him  judge  Margaret !    If  to  be  the 
thrall 

Of  love,  and  faith  too  generous  to 
defend 

Its  very  life  from  him  she  loved,  be  sin, 
What  hope  of  grace  may  the  seducer 
win  ? 

VII. 

Grim-hearted  world,  that  look'st  with 
Levite  eyes 
On  those  poor  fallen  by  too  much 
faith  in  man, 
She  that  upon  thy  freezing  threshold  lies, 
Starved  to  more  sinning  by  thy  sav- 
age ban, 

Seeking  that  refuge  because  foulest  vice 
More  godlike  than  thy  virtue  is,  whose 
span 

Shuts  out  the  wretched  only,  is  more 
free 

To  enter  Heaven  than  thou  wilt  ever  be  ! 


Thou  wilt  not  let  her  wash  thy  dainty 
feet 

With  such  salt  things  as  tears,  or  with 
rude  hair 

Dry  them,  soft  Pharisee,  that  sit'st  at 
meat 

With  him  who  made  her  such,  and 
speak' st  him  fair, 
Leaving  God's  wandering  lamb  the  while 
to  bleat 

Unheeded,  shivering  in  the  pitiless  air : 
3 


Thou  hast  made  prisoned  virtue  show 

more  wan 
And  haggard  than  a  vice  to  look  upon. 


Now  many  months  flew  by,  and  weary 
grew 

To  Margaret  the  sight  of  happy  things ; 
Blight  fell  on  all  her  flowers,  instead  of 
dew; 

Shut  round  her  heart  were  now  the 
joyous  wings 
Wherewith  it  wont  to  soar ;  yet  not  un- 
true, 

Though  tempted  much,  her  woman's 
nature  clings 
To  its  first  pure  belief,  and  with  sad 

eyes 

Looks  backward  o'er  the  gate  of  Paradise. 


And  so,  though  altered  Mordred  came 
less  oft, 

And  winter  frowned  where  spring  had 
laughed  before, 
In  his  strange  eyes,  yet  half  her  sadness 
•  doffed, 
And  in  her  silent  patience  loved  him 
more  : 

Sorrow  had  made  her  soft  heart  yet  more 
soft, 

And  a  new  life  within  her  own  she 
bore 

Which  made  her  tenderer,  as  she  felt  it 
move 

Beneath  her  breast,  a  refuge  for  her  love. 


This  babe,  she  thought,  would  surely 
bring  him  back, 
And  be  a  bond  forever  them  between ; 
Before  its  eyes  the  sullen  tempest-rack 
Would  fade,  and  leave  the  face  of 
heaven  serene  ; 
And  love's  return  doth  more  than  fill 
the  lack, 

Which  in  his  absence  withered  the 
heart's  green: 
And  yet  a  dim  foreboding  still  would 
flit 

Between  her  and  her  hope  to  darken  it. 


She  could  not  figure  forth  a  happy  fate, 
Even  for  this  life  from  heaven  so  newly 
come  ; 


34 


MISCELLANEOUS  POEMS. 


The  earth  must  needs  be  doubly  desolate 
To  him  scarce  parted  from  a  fairer 
home : 

Such  boding  heavier  on  her  bosom  sate 
One  night,  as,  standing  in  the  twilight 
gloam, 

She  strained  her  eyes  beyond  that  dizzy 
verge 

At  whose  foot  faintly  breaks  the  future's 
surge. 

XIII. 

Poor  little  spirit  !  naught  but  shame  and 

woe 

Nurse  the  sick  heart  whose  lifeblood 
nurses  thine : 
Yet  not  those  only  ;  love  hath  triumphed 
so, 

As  for  thy  sake  makes  sorrow  more 
divine  : 

And  yet,  though  thou  be  pure,  the  world 

is  foe 

To  purity,  if  born  in  such  a  shrine  ; 
And,  having  trampled  it  for  struggling 
thence, 

Smiles  to  itself,  and  calls  it  Providence. 

xiv.  * 

As  thus  she  mused,  a  shadow  seemed  to 
rise 
m  oi 

dreariness 
All  blissful  hopes  and  sunny  memories, 
And  the  quick  blood  would  curdle  up 
and  press 

About  her  heart,  which  seemed  to  shut 
its  eyes 

And  hush  itself,  as  who  with  shudder- 
ing guess 

Harks  through  the  gloom  and  dreads  e'en 

now  to  feel 
Through  his  hot  breast  the  icy  slide  of 

steel. 

xv. 

But,  at  that  heart-beat,  while  in  dread 
she  was, 

In  the  low  wind  the  honeysuckles 
gleam, 

A  dewy  thrill  flits  through  the  heavy 
grass, 

And,  looking  forth,  she  saw,  as  in  a 
dream, 

Within  the  wood  the  moonlight's  shad- 
owy mass : 
Night's  starry  heart  yearning  to  hers 
doth  seem, 


And  the  deep  sky,  full-hearted  with  the 

moon, 

Folds  round  her  all  the  happiness  of  June. 

XVI. 

What  fear  could  face  a  heaven  and  earth 
like  this  ? 
What  silveriest  cloud  could  hang'neath 
such  a  sky  ? 
A  tide  of  wondrous  and  unwonted  bliss 
Kolls  back  through  all  her  pulses  sud- 
denly, 

As  if  some  seraph,  who  had  learned  to 
kiss 

From  the  fair  daughters  of  the  wTorld 

gone  by, 

Had  wedded  so  his  fallen  light  with  hers, 
Such  sweet,  strange  joy  through  soul  and 
body  stirs. 

XVII. 

Now  seek  we  Mordred  :  he  who  did  not 
fear 

The  crime,  yet  fears  the  latent  conse- 
quence : 

If  it  should  reach  a  brother  Templar's  ear, 
It  haplymight  be  made  a  good  pretence 
To  cheat  him  of  the  hope  he  held  most 
dear  ; 

For  he  had  spared  no  thought's  or 
deed's  expense, 
That  by  and  by  might  help  his  wish  to 
clip 

Its  darling  bride,  —  the  high  grandmas- 
tership. 

XVIII. 

The  apathy,  ere  a  crime  resolved  is  done, 
Is  scarce  less  dreadful  than  remorse 
for  crime ; 
By  no  allurement  can  the  soul  be  won 
From  brooding  o'er  the  weary  creep  of 
time : 

Mordred  stole  forth  into  the  happy  sun, 
Striving  to  hum  a  scrap  of  Breton 
rhyme, 

But  the  sky  struck  him  speechless,  and 
he  tried 

In  vain  to  summon  up  his  callous  pride. 

XIX. 

In  the  courtyard  a  fountain  leaped  alway, 
A  Triton  blowing  jewels  through  his 
shell 

Into  the  sunshine  ;  Mordred  turned  away, 
Weary  because  the  stone  face  did  not 
tell 


A  LEGEND  OF  BRITTANY. 


35 


Of  weariness,  nor  could  he  bear  to-day, 
Heartsick,  to  hear  the  patient  sink 
and  swell 

Of  winds  among  the  leaves,  or  golden  bees 
Drowsily  humming  in  the  orange-trees. 

xx. 

All  happy  sights  and  sounds  now  came 
to  him 

Like  a  reproach  :  he  wandered  far  and 
wide, 

Following  the  lead  of  his  unquiet  whim, 
But  still  there  went  a  something  at  his 
side 

That  made  the  cool  breeze  hot,  the  sun- 
shine dim  ; 
It  would  not  flee,  it  could  not  be  defied, 
He  could  not  see  it,  but  he  felt  it  there, 
By  the  damp  chill  that  crept  among  his 
hair. 

XXI. 

Day  wore  at  last ;  the  evening-star  arose, 
And  throbbing  in  the  sky  grew  red  and 
set  ; 

Then  with  a  guilty,  wavering  step  he  goes 
To  the  hid  nook  where  they  so  oft  had 
met 

In  happier  season,  for  his  heart  well 
knows 

That  he  is  sure  to  find  poor  Margaret 
Watching  and  waiting  there  with  love- 
lorn breast 
Around  her  young  dream's  rudely  scat- 
tered nest. 

XXII. 

Why  follow  here  that  grim  old  chronicle 
Which  counts  the  dagger-strokes  and 
drops  of  blood  ? 
Enough  that  Margaret  by  his  mad  steel 
fell, 

Unmoved  by  murder  from  her  trusting 
mood, 

Smiling  on  him  as  Heaven  smiles  on  Hell, 
With  a  sad  love,  remembering  when 
he  stood 

Not  fallen  yet,  the  un sealer  of  her  heart, 
Of  all  her  holy  dreams  the  holiest  part. 

XXIII. 

His  crime  complete,  scarce  knowing  what 
he  did, 

(So  goes  the  tale,)  beneath  the  altar 
there 

In  the  high  church  the  stiffening  corpse 
he  hid, 

And  then,  to 'scape  that  suffocating  air, 


Like  a  scared  ghoul  out  of  the  porch  he 
slid ; 

But  his  strained  eyes  saw  blood-spots 
everywhere, 
And  ghastly  faces  thrust  themselves  be- 
tween 

His  soul  and  hopes  of  peace  with  blasting 
mien. 

XXIV. 

His  heart  went  out  within  him  like  a 
spark 

Dropt  in  the  sea;  wherever  he  made 
bold 

To  turn  his  eyes,  he  saw,  all  stiff  and 
stark, 

Pale  Margaret  lying  dead ;  the  lavish 
gold 

Of  her  loose  hair  seemed  in  the  cloudy 
dark 

To  spread  a  glory,  and  a  thousand-fold 
More  strangely  pale  and  beautiful  she 

grew : 

Her    silence    stabbed    his  conscience 
through  and  through: 

XXY. 

Or  visions  of  past  days,  — a  mother's  eyes 
That  smiled  down  on  the  fair  boy  at 
her  knee, 

Whose  happy  upturned  face  to  hers  re- 
plies, — 

He  saw  sometimes  :  or  Margaret  mourn- 
fully 

Gazed  on  him  full  of  doubt,  as  one  who 
tries 

To  crush  belief  that  does  love  injury ; 
Then  she  would  wring  her  hands,  but 

soon  again 
Love's  patience  glimmered  out  through 

cloudy  pain. 

XXVI. 

Meanwhile  he  dared  not  go  and  steal  away 
The  silent,  dead-cold  witness  of  his  sin  ; 
He  had  not  feared  the  life,  but  that  dull 
clay, 

Those  open  eyes  that  showed  the  death 
within, 

Would  surely  stare  him  mad ;  yet  all  the 

day 

A  dreadful  impulse,  whence  his  will 
could  win 

No  refuge,  made  him  linger  in  the  aisle, 
Freezing  with  his  wan  look  each  greeting 
smile. 


36 


MISCELLANEOUS  POEMS. 


XXVII. 

Xow,  on  the  second  day  there  was  to  be 
A  festival  in  church  :  from  far  and  near 
Came  Mocking  in  the  sunburnt  peasantry, 
And  knights  and  dames  with  stately 
antique  cheer, 
Blazing  with  pomp,  as  if  all  faerie 

Had  emptied  her  quaint  halls,  or,  as 
it  were. 

The  illuminated  marge  of  some  old  book, 
"While  we  were  gazing,  life  and  motion 
took. 


When  all  were  entered,  and  the  roving 

eyes 

Of  all  were  stayed,  some  upon  faces 
bright, 

Some  on  the  priests,  some  on  the  traceries 
That  decked  the  slumber  of  a  marble 
knight, 

And  all  the  rustlings  over  that  arise 

From  recognizing  tokens  of  delight, 
When  friendly  glances  meet,  —  then  si- 
lent ease 

Spread  o'er  the  multitude  by  slow  de- 
grees. 

XXIX. 

Then  swelled  the  organ :  up  through 
choir  and  nave 
The  music  trembled  with  an  inward 
thrill 

Of  bliss  at  its  own  grandeur :  wave  on 
wave 

Its  flood  of  mellow  thunder  rose,  un- 
til 

The  hushed  air  shivered  with  the  throb 
it  gave, 

Then,  poising  for  a  moment,  it  stood 
still, 

And  sank  and  rose  again,  to  burst  in 
spray 

That  wandered  into  silence  far  awav. 


XXX. 

Like  to  a  mighty  heart  the  music  seemed, 
That  yearns  with  melodies  it  cannot 

speak,  ^  r 

Until,    in  grand  despair   of  what  it 

dreamed, 

In  the  agony  of  effort  it  doth  break, 
Yet  triumphs  breaking ;  on  it  rushed  and 
streamed 

And  wantoned  in  its  might,  as  when 
a  lake,  | 


Long  pent  among  the  mountains,  bursts 

its  walls 

And  in  one  crowding  gush  leaps  forth 
and  falls. 

XXXI. 

Deeper  and  deeper  shudders  shook  the 
air, 

As  the  huge  bass  kept  gathering  heav- 
ily, 

Like  thunder  when  it  rouses  in  its  lair, 
And  with  its  hoarse  growl  shakes  the 
low-hung  skv, 
It  grew  up  like  a  darkness  evervwhere, 

Filling  the  vast  cathedral ;  —  suddenly, 
From  the  dense  mass  a  boy's  clear  treble 
broke 

Like  lightning,  and  the  full-toned  choir 
awoke. 

XXXII. 

Through  gorgeous  windows  shojie  the 

sun  aslant. 
Brimming  the  church  with  gold  and 

purple  mist, 
Meet  atmosphere  to  bosom  that  rich 

chant, 

"Where  fifty  voices  in  one  strand  did 
twist, 

Their  varicolored  tones,  and  left  no  want 
To  the  delighted  soul,  which  sank 
abyssed 

In  the  warm  music  cloud,  while,  far  be- 
low, 

The  organ  heaved  its  surges  to  and  fro. 

XXXIII. 

As  if  a  lark  should  suddenly  drop  dead 
While  the  blue  air  yet  trembled  with 
its  song, 

So  snapped  at  once  that  music's  golden 
thread, 

Struck  by  a  nameless  fear  that  leapt 
along 

From  heart  to  heart,  and  like  a  shadow 

spread 

With  instantaneous  shiver  through  the 
throng, 

So  that  some  glanced  behind,  as  half 

aware 

A  hideous  shape  of  dread  were  standing 
there. 


As  when  a  crowd  of  pale  men  gather 
round, 

Watching  an  eddy  in  the  leaden  deep, 


A  LEGEND  OF  BEITTANY. 


37 


From  which  they  deem  the  body  of  one 
drowned 

Will  be  cast  forth,  from  face  to  face 
doth  creep 
An  eager  dread  that  holds  all  tongues 
fast  bound 
Until  the  horror,  with  a  ghastly  leap, 
Starts  up,  its  dead  blue  arms  stretched 
aimlessly, 

Heaved  with  the  swinging  of  the  care- 
less sea,  — 

XXXV. 

So  in  the  faces  of  all  these  there  grew, 
As  by  one  impulse,  a  dark,  freezing 
awe, 

Which,  with  a  fearful  fascination  drew 
All  eyes  toward  the  altar ;  damp  and 
raw 

The  air  grew  suddenly,  and  no  man  knew 
Whether  perchance  his  silent  neighbor 
saw 

The  dreadful  thing  which  all  were  sure 
^        would  rise 

To  scare  the  strained  lids  wider  from 
their  eyes. 

xxxvi. 

The  incense  trembled  as  it  upward  sent 
Its  slow,  uncertain  thread  of  wander- 
ing blue, 
As 't  were  the  only  living  element 

In  all  the  church,  so  deep  the  stillness 
grew ; 

It  seemed  one  might  have  heard  it,  as  it 
went, 

Give  out  an  audible  rustle,  curling 
through 

The  midnight  silence  of  that  awe-struck 
air, 

More  hushed   than  death,  though  so 
much  life  was  there. 

XXXVII. 

Nothing  they  saw,  but  a  low  voice  was 
heard 

Threading  the  ominous  silence  of  that 
fear, 

Gentle  and  terrorless  as  if  a  bird, 

Wakened   by  some  volcano's  glare, 

should  cheer 
The  murk  air  with  his  song ;  yet  every 

word 

In  the  cathedral's  farthest  arch  seemed 
near, 


As  if  it  spoke  to  every  one  apart, 
Like  the  clear  voice  of  conscience  in  each 
heart. 

XXXVIII. 

"0  Rest,  to  weary  hearts  thou  art  most 
dear  ! 

0  Silence,  after  life's  bewildering  din, 
Thou  art  most  welcome,  whether  in  the  . 
sear 

Days  of  our  age  thou  comest,  or  we 
win 

Thy  poppy-wreath  in  youth !  then  where- 
fore here 
Linger  I  yet,  once  free  to  enter  in 

At  that  wished  gate  which  gentle  Death 
doth  ope, 

Into  the  boundless  realm  of  strength  and 
hope  ? 

xxxix. 

4 'Think  not  in  death  my  love  could  ever 
cease ; 

If  thou  wast  false,  more  need  there  is 
for  me 

Still  to  be  true ;  that  slumber  were  not 
peace, 

If  't  were  un visited  with  dreams  of 
thee : 

And  thou  hadst  never  heard  such  words 
as  these, 

Save  that  in  heaven  I  must  forever  be 
Most  comfortless  and  wretched,  seeing 
this 

Our  unbaptized  babe  shut  out  from  bliss. 

XL. 

"This  little  spirit  with  imploring  eyes 
Wanders  alone  the  dreary  wild  of 
space ; 

The  shadow  of  his  pain  forever  lies 
Upon  my  soul  in  this  new  dwelling- 
place  ; 

His  loneliness  makes  me  in  Paradise 

More  lonely,  and,  unless  I  see  his  face, 
Even  here  for  grief  could  I  lie  down  and 
die, 

Save  for  my  curse  of  immortality. 

XLI. 

"  World  after  world  he  sees  around  him 
swim 

Crowded  with  happy  souls,  that  take 
no  heed 

Of  the  sad  eyes  that  from  the  night's 
faint  rim 

Gaze  sick  with  longing  on  them  as 
they  speed 


38 


MISCELLANEOUS  POEMS. 


"With  golden  gates,  that  only  shut  out 
him  ; 

And  shapes  sometimes   from  Hell's 
abysses  freed 
Flap  darkly  by  him,   with  enormous 

sweep 

Of  wings  that  roughen  wide  the  pitchy 
deep. 

XLTI. 

"I  am  a  mother, — spirits  do  not  shake 
This  much  of  earth  from  them,  —  and 
I  must  pine 
Till  I  can  feel  his  little  hands,  and  take 
His  weary  head  upon  this  heart  of 
mine ; 

And,  might  it  be,  full  gladly  for  his 
sake 

Would  I  this  solitude  of  bliss  resign 
And  be  shut  out  of  Heaven  to  dwell  with 
him 

Forever  in  that  silence  drear  and  dim 


"I  strove  to  hush  my  soul,  and  would 
not  speak 

At  first,  for  thy  dear  sake ;  a  woman's 
love 

Is  mighty,  but  a  mother's  heart  is  weak, 
And  by  its  weakness  overcomes;  I 
strove 

To  smother  bitter  thoughts  with  patience 
meek, 

But  still  in  the  abyss  my  soul  would 
rove, 

Seeking  my  child,  and  drove  me  here  to 
claim 

The  rite  that  gives  him  peace  in  Christ's 
dear  name. 


"I  sit  and  weep  while  blessed  spirits 
sing; 

I  can  but  long  and  pine  the  while  they 
praise, 

And,  leaning  o'er  the  wall  of  Heaven,  I 
fling 

My  voice  to  where  I  deem  my  infant 
strays, 

Like  a  robbed  bird  that  cries  in  vain  to 
bring 

Her  nestlings  back  beneath  her  wings' 
embrace ; 

But  still  he  answers  not,  and  I  but  know 
That  Heaven  and  earth  are  both  alike  in 
woe." 


Then  the  pale  priests,  with  ceremony  due, 
Baptized  the  child  within  its  dreadful 
tomb 

Beneath  that  mother's  heart,  whose  in- 
stinct true 
Star-like  had  battled  down  the  triple 
gloom 

Of  sorrow,  love,  and  death  :  young  mn id- 
ens,  too, 

Strewed  the  pale  corpse  with  many  a 
milkwhite  bloom, 
And  parted  the  bright  hair,  and  on  the 
breast 

Crossed  the  unconscious  hands  in  sign 
of  rest. 


Some  said,  that,  when  the  priest  had 
sprinkled  o'er 
The  consecrated  drops,  they  seemed  to 
hear 

A  sigh,  as  of  some  heart  from  travail 

sore 

Released,  and  then  two  voices  singing 
clear, 

Miser eatur  Dens,  more  and  more 

Fading  far  upward,  and  their  ghastly 
fear 

Fell  from  them  with  that  sound,  as 

bodies  fall 
From  souls  upspringing  to  celestial  hall. 


PROMETHEUS. 

One  after  one  the  stars  have  risen  and 
set, 

Sparkling  upon  the  hoarfrost  on  my 
chain  : 

The  Bear,  that  prowled  all  night  about  the 
fold 

Of  the  North-star,  hath  shrunk  into  his 
den, 

Scared  by  the  blithesome  footsteps  of  the 
Dawn, 

Whose  blushing  smile  floods  all  the 
Orient ; 

And  now  bright  Lucifer  grows  less  and 
less, 

Into  the  heaven's  blue  quiet  deep-with- 
drawn. 

Sunless  and  starless  all,  the  desert  sky 
Arches  above  me,  empty  as  this  heart 
For  ages  hath  been  empty  of  all  joy, 
Except  to  brood  upon  its  silent  hope, 
As  o'er  its  hope  of  day  the  sky  doth  now. 


PROMETHEUS. 


39 


All  night  have  I  heard  voices  :  deeper  yet 
The  deep  low  breathing  of  the  silence 
grew, 

While  all  about,  muffled  in  awe,  there 
stood 

Shadows,  or  forms,  or  both,  clear- felt  at 
heart, 

But,  when  I  turned  to  front  them,  far 
along 

Only  a  shudder  through  the  midnight  ran, 
And  the  dense  stillness  walled  me  closer 
round. 

But  still  I  heard  them  wander  up  and 
down 

That  solitude,  and  flappings  of  dusk 
wings 

Did  mingle  with  them,  whether  of  those 
hags 

Let  slip  upon  me  once  from  Hades  deep, 
Or  of  yet  direr  torments,  if  such  be, 
1  could  but  guess ;  and  then  toward  me 
came 

A  shape  as  of  a  woman  :  very  pale 
It  was,  and  calm  ;  its  cold  eyes  did  not 
move, 

And  mine  moved  not,  but  only  stared  on 
them. 

Their  fixed  awe  went  through  my  brain 
like  ice  ; 

A  skeleton  hand  seemed  clutching  at  my 
heart, 

And  a  sharp  chill,  as  if  a  dank  night  fog 
Suddenly  closed  me  in,  was  all  I  felt : 
And  then,  methought,  I  heard  a  freezing 
sigh, 

A  long,  deep,  shivering  sigh,  as  from  blue 
lips 

Stiffening  in  death,  close  to  mine  ear.  I 
thought 

Some  doom  was  close  upon  me,  and  I 
looked 

And  saw  the  red  moon  through  the  heavy 
mist, 

Just  setting,  and  it  seemed  as  it  were 
falling, 

Or  reeling  to  its  fall,  so  dim  and  dead 
And  palsy-struck  it  looked.     Then  all 

sounds  merged 
Into  the  rising  surges  of  the  pines, 
Which,  leagues  below  me,  clothing  the 

gaunt  loins 
Of  ancient  Caucasus  with  hairy  strength, 
Sent  up  a  murmur  in  the  morning  wind, 
Sad  as  the  wail  that  from  the  populous 

earth 

All  day  and  night  to  high  Olympus  soars, 
Fit  incense  to  thy  wicked  throne,  0  Jove  ! 


Thy  hated  name  is  tossed  once  more  in 
scorn 

From  off  my  lips,  for  I  will  tell  thy  doom. 

And  are  these  tears  ?  Nay,  do  not  tri- 
umph, Jove  ! 

They  are  wrung  from  me  but  by  the  ago- 
nies 

Of  prophecy,  like  those  sparse  drops 
which  fall 

From  clouds  in  travail  of  the  lightning, 
when 

The  great  wave  of  the  storm  high-curled 
and  black 

Rolls  steadily  onward  to  its  thunderous 
break. 

Why  art  thou  made  a  god  of,  thou  poor 
type 

Of  anger,  and  revenge,  and  cunning  force  ? 
True  Power  was  never  born  of  brutish 
Strength, 

Nor  sweet  Truth  suckled  at  the  shaggy 
dugs 

Of  that  old  she-wolf.  Are  thy  thunder- 
bolts, 

That  quell  the  darkness  for  a  space,  so 
strong 

As  the  prevailing  patience  of  meek  Light, 
Who,  with  the  invincible  tenderness  of 
peace, 

Wins  it  to  be  a  portion  of  herself  ? 
Why  art  thou  made  a  god  of,  thou,  who 
hast 

The  never-sleeping  terror  at  thy  heart, 
That  birthright  of  all  tyrants,  worse  to 
bear 

Than  this  thy  ravening  bird  on  which  I 
smile  ? 

Thou  swear'st  to  free  me,  if  I  will  unfold 
What  kind  of  doom  it  is  whose  omen  flits 
Across  thy  heart,  as  o'er  a  troop  of  doves 
The  fearful  shadow  of  the  kite.  What 
need 

To  know  that  truth  whose  knowledge 

cannot  save  ? 
Evil  its  errand  hath,  as  well  as  Good  ; 
When  thine  is  finished,  thou  art  known 

no  more  : 
There  is  a  higher  purity  than  thou, 
And  higher  purity  is  greater  strength  ; 
Thy  nature  is  thy  doom,  at  which  thy 

heart 

Trembles  behind  the  thick  wall  of  thy 
might. 

Let  man  but  hope,  and  thou  art  straight- 
way chilled 

With  thought  of  that  drear  silence  and 
deep  night 


40 


MISCELLANEOUS  POEMS. 


"Which,  like  a  dream,  shall  swallow  thee 

and  thine  : 
Let  man  but  will,  and  thou  art  god  no 

more, 

More  capable  of  ruin  than  the  gold 
And  ivory  that  image  thee  on  earth. 
He  who  hurled  down  the  monstrous 

Titan-brood 
Blinded  with  lightnings,  with  rough 

thunders  stunned, 
Is  weaker  than  a  simple  human  thought. 
My  slender  voice  can  shake  thee,  as  the 

breeze, 

That  seems  but  apt  to  stir  a  maiden's  hair, 
Sways  huge  Oceanus  from  pole  to  pole  ; 
For  I  am  still  Prometheus,  and  foreknow 
In  my  wise  heart  the  end  and  doom  of  all. 

Yes,  I  am  still  Prometheus,  wiser  grown 
By  years  of  solitude,  —  that  holds  apart 
The  past  and  future,  giving  the  soul  room 
To  search  into  itself,  —  and  long  com- 
mune 

With  this  eternal  silence ;  — more  a  god, 
In  my  long-suffering  and  strength  to  meet 
With  equal  front  the  direst  shafts  of  fate, 
Than  thou  in  thy  faint-hearted  despot- 
ism, 

Girt  with  thy  baby-toys  of  force  and 
wrath. 

Yes,  I  am  that  Prometheus  who  brought 
down 

The  light  to  man,  which  thou,  in  selfish 
fear, 

Hadst  to  thyself  usurped,  —  his  by  sole 
right, 

For  Man  hath  right  to  all  save  Tyr- 
anny, — 

And  which  shall  free  him  yet  from  thy 

frail  throne. 
Tyrants  are  but  the  spawn  of  Ignorance, 
Begotten  by  the  slaves  they  trample  on, 
Who,  could  they  win  a  glimmer  of  the 

light, 

And  see  that  Tyranny  is  always  weak- 
ness, 

Or  Fear  with  its  own  bosom  ill  at  ease, 
Would  laugh  away  in  scorn  the  sand- 
wove  chain 
Which  their  own  blindness  feigned  for 
adamant. 

Wrong  ever  builds  on  quicksands,  but 
the  Right 

To  the  firm  centre  lays  its  moveless  base. 
The  tyrant  trembles,  if  the  air  but  stirs 
The  innocent  ringlets  of  a  child's  free 
hair, 


And  crouches,  when  the  thought  of  some 

great  spirit, 
With  world-wide  murmur,  like  a  rising 

gale,  \ 
Over  men's  hearts,  as  over  standing  corn, 
Rushes,  and  bends  them  to  its  own  strong 

will. 

So  shall  some  thought  of  mine  yet  circle 
earth, 

And  puff  away  thy  crumbling  altars, 
Jove ! 

And,  wouldst  thou  know  of  my  su- 
preme revenge, 
Poor  tyrant,  even  now  dethroned  in 
heart, 

Realmless  in  soul,  as  tyrants  ever  are, 
Listen  !  and  tell  me  if  this  bitter  peak, 
This  never-glutted  vulture,  and  these 
chains 

Shrink  not  before  it ;  for  it  shall  befit 
A  sorrow-taught,  unconquered  Titan- 
heart. 

Men,  when  their  death  is  on  them,  seem 
to  stand 

On  a  precipitous  crag  that  overhangs 
The  abyss  of  doom,  and  in  that  depth 
to  see, 

As  in  a  glass,  the  features  dim  and  vast 
Of  things  to  come,  the  shadows,  as  it 
seems, 

Of  what  have  been.    Death  ever  fronts 
the  wise ; 

Not  fearfully,  but  with  clear  promises 
Of  larger  life,  on  whose  broad  vans  up- 
borne, 

Their  outlook  widens,  and  they  see  be- 
yond 

The  horizon  of  the  Present  and  the  Past, 
Even  to  the  very  source  and  end  of 
things. 

Such  am  I  now:  immortal  woe  hath 
made 

My  heart  a  seer,  and  my  soul  a  judge 
Between  the  substance  and  the  shadow 
of  Truth. 

The  sure  supremeness  of  the  Beautiful, 
By  all  the  martyrdoms  made  doubly  sure 
Of  such  as  I  am,  this  is  my  revenge, 
Which  of  my  wrongs  builds  a  triumphal 
arch. 

Through  which  I  see  a  sceptre  and  a 
throne. 

The  pipings  of  glad  shepherds  on  the 
hills, 

Tending  the  flocks  no  more  to  bleed  for 
thee,  — 


PROMETHEUS. 


41 


The  songs  of  maidens  pressing  with  white, 
feet 

The  vintage  on  thine  altars  poured  no 
more,  — 

The  murmurous  bliss  of  lovers,  under- 
neath 

Dim  grapevine    bowers,    whose  rosy 

bunches  press 
Not  half  so  closely  their  warm  cheeks, 

unpaled 

By  thoughts  of  thy  brute  lust, — the 
hive-like  hum 

Of  peaceful  commonwealths,  where  sun- 
burnt Toil 

Reaps  for  itself  the  rich  earth  made  its 
own 

By  its  own  labor,  lightened  with  glad 
hymns 

To  an  omnipotence  which  thy  mad  bolts 
Would  cope  with  as  a  spark  with  the 

vast  sea,  — 
Even  the  spirit  of  free  love  and  peace, 
Duty's  sure  recompense  through  life  and 

death,  — 

These  are  such  harvests  as  all  master- 
spirits 

Reap,  haply  not  on  earth,  but  reap  no 
less 

Because  the  sheaves  are  bound  by  hands 
not  theirs ; 

These  are  the  bloodless  daggers  where- 
withal 

They  stab  fallen  tyrants,  this  their  high 
revenge : 

For  their  best  part  of  life  on  earth  is 
when, 

Long  after  death,  prisoned  and  pent  no 
more, 

Their  thoughts,  their  wild  dreams  even, 

have  become 
Part  of  the  necessary  air  men  breathe : 
When,  like  the  moon,  herself  behind  a 

cloud, 

They  shed  down  light  before  us  on  life's 
sea, 

That  cheers  us  to  steer  onward  still  in 
hope. 

Earth  with  her  twining  memories  ivies 
o'er 

Their  holy  sepulchres  ;  the  chainless  sea, 
In  tempest  or  wide  calm,  repeats  their 
thoughts  ; 

The  lightning  and  the  thunder,  all  free 
things, 

Have  legends  of  them  for  the  ears  ©f 
men. 

All  other  glories  are  as  falling  stars, 


But  universal  Nature  watches  theirs : 
Such  strength  is  won  by  love  of  human 
kind. 

Not  that  I  feel  that  hunger  after  fame, 
Which  souls  of  a  half-greatness  are  beset 
with ; 

But  that  the  memory  of  noble  deeds 
Cries  shame  upon  the  idle  and  the  vile, 
And  keeps  the  heart  of  Man  forever  up 
To  the  heroic  level  of  old  time. 
To  be  forgot  at  first  is  little  pain 
To  a  heart  conscious  of  such  high  intent 
As  must  be  deathless  on  the  lips  of  men  ; 
But,  having  been  a  name,  to  sink  and  be 
A  something  which  the  world  can  do 
without, 

Which,  having  been  or  not,  would  never 
change 

The  lightest  pulse  of  fate, — this  is  in- 
deed 

A  cup  of  bitterness  the  worst  to  taste, 
And  this  thy  heart  shall  empty  to  the 
dregs. 

Endless  despair  shall  be  thy  Caucasus, 
And  memory  thy  vulture  ;  thou  wilt  find 
Oblivion  far  lonelier  than  this  peak,  — 
Behold  thy  destiny !    Thou  think'st  it 
much 

That  I  should  brave  thee,  miserable  god  ! 
But  I  have  braved  a  mightier  than  thou, 
Even  the  tempting  of  this  soaring  heart, 
Which  might  have  made  me,  scarcely 

less  than  thou, 
A  god  among  my  brethren  weak  and 

blind,  — 

Scarce  less  than  thou,  a  pitiable  thing 
To  be  down-trodden  into  darkness  soon. 
But  now  I  am  above  thee,  for  thou  art 
The  bungling  workmanship  of  fear,  the 
block 

That  awes  the  swart  Barbarian  ;  but  I 
Am  what  myself  have  made,  — a  nature 
wise 

With  finding  in  itself  the  types  of  all,  — 
With  watching  from  the  dim  verge  of 
the  time 

What  things  to  be  are  visible  in  the 
gleams 

Thrown  forward  on  them  from  the  lumi- 
nous past,  — 

Wise  with  the  history  of  its  own  frail 
heart, 

With  reverence  and  with  sorrow,  and 
with  love, 

Broad  as  the  world,  for  freedom  and  for 
man. 


42 


MISCELLANEOUS  POEMS. 


Thou  and  all  strength  shall  crumble, 

except  Love, 
By  whom,  and  for  whose  glory,  ye  shall 

cease : 

And,  when  thou  art  but  a  dim  moaning 
heard 

From  out  the  pitiless  gloom  of  Chaos,  I 
Shall  be  a  power  and  a  memory, 
A  name  to  fright  all  tyrants  with,  a 
light 

Unsetting  as  the  pole-star,  a  great  voice 
Heard  in  the  breathless  pauses  of  the 
fight 

By  truth  and  freedom  ever  waged  with 
wrong, 

Clear  as  a  silver  trumpet,  to  awake 
Huge  echoes  that  from  age  to  age  live 
on 

In  kindred  spirits,  giving  them  a  sense 
Of  boundless  power  from  boundless  suf- 
fering wrung : 
And  many  a  glazing  eye  shall  smile  to 

see 

The  memory  of  my  triumph  (for  to  meet 
Wrong  with  endurance,  and  to  overcome 
The  present  with  a  heart  that  looks  be- 
yond, 

Are  triumph),  like  a  prophet  eagle,  perch 
Upon  the  sacred  banner  of  the  Eight. 
Evil  springs  up,  and  flowers,  and  bears 
no  seed, 

And  feeds  the  green  earth  with  its  swift 
decay, 

Leaving  it  richer  for  the  growth  of 
truth ; 

But  Good,  once  put  in  action  or  in 
thought, 

Like  a  strong  oak,  doth  from  its  boughs 

shed  down 
The  ripe  germs  of  a  forest.    Thou,  weak 

god, 

Shalt  fade  and  be  forgotten  !  but  this 
soul, 

Fresh-living  still  in  the  serene  abyss, 
In  every  heaving  shall  partake,  that 
grows 

From  heart  to  heart  among  the  sons  of 
men,  — 

As  the  ominous  hum  before  the  earth- 
quake runs 

Far  through  the  iEgean  from  roused  isle 
to  isle,  — 

Foreboding  wreck  to  palaces  and  shrines, 
And  mighty  rents  in  many  a  cavernous 
error 

That  darkens  the  free  light  to  man  :  — 
This  heart, 


Unscarred  by  thy  grim  vulture,  as  the 
truth 

Grows  but  more  lovely  'neath  the  beaks 
and  claws 

Of  Harpies  blind  that  fain  would  soil  it, 
shall 

In  all  the  throbbing  exultations  share 
That  wait  on  freedom's  triumphs,  and 
in  all 

The  glorious  agonies  of  martyr-spirits,  — 
Sharp  lightning-throes  to  split  the  jag- 
ged clouds 
That  veil  the  future,  showing  them  the 
end,  — 

Pain's  thorny  crown  for  constancy  and 
truth, 

Girding  the  temples  like  a  wreath  of 
stars. 

This  is  a  thought,  that,  like  the  fabled 
laurel, 

Makes  my  faith  thunder-proof ;  and  thy 

dread  bolts 
Fall  on  me  like  the  silent  flakes  of  snow 
On  the  hoar  brows  of  aged  Caucasus : 
But,  0  thought  far  more  blissful,  they 

can  rend 

This  cloud  of  flesh,  and  make  my  soul  a 
star ! 

Unleash  thy  crouching  thunders  now, 
0  Jove ! 

Free  this  high  heart,  which,  a  poor  cap- 
tive long, 

Doth  knock  to  be  let  forth,  this  heart 

which  still, 
In  its  invincible  manhood,  overtops 
Thy  puny  godship,  as  this  mountain  doth 
The  pines  that  moss  its  roots.    0,  even 

now, 

While  from  my  peak  of  suffering  I  look 
down, 

Beholding  with  a  far-spread  gush  of 
hope 

The  sunrise  of  that  Beauty,  in  whose 
face, 

Shone  all  around  with  love,  no  man  shall 
look 

But  straightway  like  a  god  he  is  uplift 
Unto  the  throne  long  empty  for  his  sake, 
And  clearly  oft  foreshadowed  in  wide 
dreams 

By  his  free  inward  nature,  which  nor 
thou, 

Nor  any  anarch  after  thee,  can  bind 
From  working  its  great  doom, — now, 

now  set  free 
This  essence,  not  to  die,  but  to  become 


PROMETHEUS. 


43 


Part  of  that  awful  Presence  which  doth 
haunt 

The  palaces  of  tyrants,  to  hunt  off, 
With  its  grim  eyes  and  fearful  whisper- 
ings 

And  hideous  sense  of  utter  loneliness, 
All  hope  of  safety,  all  desire  of  peace, 
All  but  the  loathed  forefeeling  of  blank 
death,  — 

Part  of  that  spirit  which  doth  ever  brood 
In  patient  cairn  on  the  unpilfered  nest 
Of  man's  deep  heart,  till  mighty  thoughts 

grow  fledged 
To  sail  with  darkening  shadow  o'er  the 

world, 

Filling  with  dread  such  souls  as  dare  not 
trust 

In  the  unfailing  energy  of  Good, 
Until  they  swoop,  and  their  pale  quarry 
make 

Of  some  o'erbloated  wrong, — that  spirit 
which 

Scatters  great  hopes  in  the  seed-field  of 
man, 

Like  acorns  among  grain,  to  grow  and  be 
A  roof  for  freedom  in  all  coming  time ! 

But  no,  this  cannot  be ;  for  ages  yet, 
In  solitude  unbroken,  shall  I  hear 
The  angry  Caspian  to  the  Euxine  shout, 
And  Euxine  answer  with  a  muffled  roar, 
On  either  side  storming  the  giant  walls 
Of  Caucasus  with  leagues  of  climbing 
foam 

(Less,  from  my  height,  than  flakes  of 

downy  snow), 
That  draw  back  baffled  but  to  hurl  again, 
Snatched  up  in  wrath  and  horrible  tur- 
moil, 

Mountain  on  mountain,  as  the  Titans 
erst, 

My  brethren,  scaling  the  high  seat  of 
Jove, 

Heaved  Pelion  upon  Ossa's  shoulders 
broad 

In  vain  emprise.    The  moon  will  come 
and  go 

With  her  monotonous  vicissitude  ; 
Once  beautiful,  when  I  was  free  to  walk 
Among  my  fellows,  and  to  interchange 
The  influence  benign  of  loving  eyes, 
But  now  by  aged  use  grown  wearisome  ;  — 
False  thought !  most  false  !  for  how  could 
I  endure 

These  crawling  centuries  of  lonely  woe 
Unshamed  by  weak  complaining,  but  for 
thee, 


Loneliest,  save  me,  of  all  created  things, 
Mild-eyed  Astarte,  my  best  comforter, 
With  thy  pale  smile  of  sad  benignity  ? 

Year  after  year  will  pass  away  and 
seem 

To  me,  in  mine  eternal  agony, 
But  as  the  shadows  of  dumb  summer 
clouds, 

Which  I  have  watched  so  often  darken- 
ing o'er 

The  vast  Sarmatian  plain,  league-wide 
at  first, 

But,  with  still  swiftness,  lessening  on 
and  on 

Till  cloud  and  shadow  meet  and  mingle 
where 

The  gray  horizon  fades  into  the  sky, 
Far,  far  to  northward.    Yes,  for  ages  yet 
Must  I  lie  here  upon  my  altar  huge, 
A  sacrifice  for  man.    Sorrow  will  be, 
As  it  hath  been,  his  portion;  endless 
doom, 

While  the  immortal  with  the  mortal 
linked 

Dreams  of  its  wings  and  pines  for  what 
it  dreams, 

With  upward  yearn  unceasing.  Better 
so  : 

For  wisdom  is  meek  sorrow's  patient 
child, 

And  empire  over  self,  and  all  the  deep 
Strong  charities  that  make  men  seem 

like  gods  ; 
And  love,  that  makes  them  be  gods, 

from  her  breasts 
Sucks  in  the  milk  that  makes  mankind 

one  blood. 

Good  never  comes  unmixed,  or  so  it 
seems, 

Having  two  faces,  as  some  images 
Are  carved,  of  foolish  gods;  one  face 
is  ill  ; 

But  one  heart  lies  beneath,  and  that  is 
good, 

As  are  all  hearts,  when  we  explore  their 
depths. 

Therefore,  great  heart,  bear  up  !  thou  art 
but  type 

Of  what  all  lofty  spirits  endure,  that  fain 
Would  win  men  back  to  strength  and 

peace  through  love : 
Each  hath  his  lonely  peak,  and  on  each 

heart 

Envy,  or  scorn,  or  hatred,  tears  lifelong 
With  vulture  beak ;  yet  the  high  soul  is 
left;. 


44 


MISCELLANEOUS  POEMS. 


And  faith,  which  is  but  hope  grown 
wise ;  and  love 

And  patience,  which  at  last  shall  over- 
come. 


THE  SHEPHERD  OF  KING  ADMETUS. 

There  came  a  youth  upon  the  earth, 

Some  thousand  years  ago, 
Whose   slender    hands   were  nothing 
worth, 

Whether  to  plough,  or  reap,  or  sow. 

Upon  an  empty  tortoise-shell 

He  stretched  some  chords,  and  drew 
Music  that  made  men's  bosoms  swell 
Fearless,  or  brimmed  their  eyes  with 
dew. 

Then  King  Admetus,  one  who  had 

Pure  taste  by  right  divine, 
Decreed  his  singing  not  too  bad 
To  hear  between  the  cups  of  wine  : 

And  so,  well  pleased  with  being  soothed 

Into  a  sweet  half-sleep, 
Three  times  his  kingly  beard  he  smoothed, 
And  made  him  viceroy  o'er  his  sheep. 

His  words  were  simple  words  enough,* 

And  yet  he  used  them  so, 
That  what  in  other  mouths  was  rough 
In  his  seemed  musical  and  low. 

Men  called  him  but  a  shiftless  youth, 

In  whom  no  good  they  saw ; 
And  yet,  unwittingly,  in  truth, 
They  made  his  careless  words  their  law. 

They  knew  not  how  he  learned  at  all, 

For  idly,  hour  by  hour, 
He  sat  and  watched  the  dead  leaves  fall, 
Or  mused  upon  a  common  flower. 

It  seemed  the  loveliness  of  things 

Did  teach  him  all  their  use, 
For,  in  mere  weeds,  and  stones,  and 
springs, 

He  found  a  healing  power  profuse. 

Men  granted  that  his  speech  was  wise, 

But,  when  a  glance  they  caught 
Of  his  slim  grace  and  woman's  eyes, 
They  laughed,  and  called  him  good-for- 
naught. 

Yet  after  he  was  dead  and  gone, 
And  e'en  his  memory  dim, 


Earth  seemed  more  sweet  to  live  upon, 
More  full  of  love,  because  of  him. 

And  day  by  day  more  holy  grew 
Each  spot  where  he  had  trod, 
Till  after-poets  only  knew 
Their  first-born  brother  as  a  god. 


THE  TOKEN. 

It  is  a  mere  wild  rosebud, 

Quite  sallow  now,  and  dry, 
Yet  there  's  something  wondrous  in  it, 

Some  gleams  of  days  gone  by, 
Dear  sights  and  sounds  that  are  to  me 
The  very  moons  of  memory, 
And  stir  my  heart's  blood  far  below 
Its  short-lived  waves  of  joy  and  woe. 

Lips  must  fade  and  roses  wither, 

All  sweet  times  be  o'er ; 
They    only    smile,    and,  murmuring 
"Thither!" 

Stay  with  us  no  more  : 
And  yet  ofttimes  a  look  or  smile, 
Forgotten  in  a  kiss's  while, 
Years  after  from  the  dark  will  start, 
And  flash  across  the  trembling  heart. 

Thou  hast  given  me  many  roses, 

But  never  one,  like  this, 
O'erfloods  both  sense  and  spirit 

With  such  a  deep,  wild  bliss ; 
We  must  have  instincts  that  glean  up 
Sparse  drops  of  this  life  in  the  cup, 
Whose  taste  shall  give  us  all  that  we 
Can  prove  of  immortality. 

Earth's  stablest  things  are  shadows, 

And,  in  the  life  to  come, 
Haply  some  chance-saved  trifle 

May  tell  of  this  old  home  : 
As  now  sometimes  we  seem  to  find, 
In  a  dark  crevice  of  the  mind, 
Some  relic,  which,  long  pondered  o'er, 
Hints  faintly  at  a  life  before. 


AN  INCIDENT  IN  A  RAILROAD  CAR. 

He  spoke  of  Burns :  men  rude  and 
rough 

Pressed  round  to  hear  the  praise  of  one 
Whose  heart  was  made  of  manly,  simple 
stuff, 

As  homespun  as  their  own. 


AN  INCIDENT  IN 


A  RAILROAD  CAR. 


45 


And,  when  he  read,  they  forward 
leaned, 

Drinking,  with  thirsty  hearts  and  ears, 
His  brook-like  songs  whom  glory  never 
weaned 

From  humble  smiles  and  tears. 

Slowly  there  grew  a  tender  awe, 
Sun -like,  o'er  faces  brown  and  hard, 
As  if  in  him  who  read  they  felt  and  saw 
Some  presence  of  the  bard. 

It  was  a  sight  for  sin  and  wrong 
And  slavish  tyranny  to  see, 
A  sight  to  make  our  faith  more  pure  and 
strong 
In  high  humanity. 

I  thought,  these  men  will  carry  hence 
Promptings  their  former  life  above, 
And  something  of  a  finer  reverence 
For  beauty,  truth,  and  love. 

God  scatters  love  on  every  side 
Freely  among  his  children  all, 
And  always  hearts  are  lying  open  wide, 
Wherein  some  grains  may  fall. 

There  is  no  wind  but  soweth  seeds 
Of  a  more  true  and  open  life, 
"Which  burst,  unlooked  for,  into  high- 
souled  deeds, 
With  wayside  beauty  rife. 

We  find  within  these  souls  of  ours 
Some  wild  germs  of  a  higher  birth, 
Which  in  the  poet's  tropic  heart  bear 
flowers 

Whose  fragrance  fills  the  earth. 

Within  the  hearts  of  all  men  lie 
These  promises  of  wider  bliss, 
Which  blossom  into  hopes  that  cannot 
die, 

In  sunny  hours  like  this. 

All  that  hath  been  majestical 
In  life  or  death,  since  time  began, 
Is  native  in  the  simple  heart  of  all, 
The  angel  heart  of  man. 

And  thus,  among  the  untaught  poor, 
Great  deeds  and  feelings  find  a  home, 
That  cast  in  shadow  all  the  golden  lore 
Of  classic  Greece  and  Rome. 

0,  mighty  brother-soul  of  man, 
Where'er  thou  art,  in  low  or  high, 


Thy  skyey  arches  with  exulting  span 
O'er-roof  infinity  ! 

All  thoughts  that  mould  the  age  begin 
Deep  down  within  the  primitive  soul, 
And  from  the  many  slowly  upward  win 
To  one  who  grasps  the  whole  : 

In  his  wide  brain  the  feeling  deep 
That  struggled  on  the  many's  tongue 
Swells  to  a  tide  of  thought,  whose  surges 
leap 

O'er  the  weak  thrones  of  wrong. 

All  thought  begins  in  feeling,  —  wide 
In  the  great  mass  its  base  is  hid, 
And,  narrowing  up  to  thought,  stands 
glorified, 
A  moveless  pyramid. 

Nor  is  he  far  astray,  who  deems 
That  every  hope,  which  rises  and 
grows  broad 
In  the  world's  heart,  by  ordered  impulse 
streams 
From  the  great  heart  of  God. 

God  wills,  man  hopes :  in  common 
souls 

Hope  is  but  vague  and  undefined, 
Till  from  the  poet's  tongue  the  message 
rolls 

A  blessing  to  his  kind. 

Never  did  Poesy  appear 
So  full  of  heaven  to  me,  as  when 
I  saw  how  it  would  pierce  through  pride 
and  fear 
To  the  lives  of  coarsest  men. 

It  may  be  glorious  to  write 
Thoughts  that  shall  glad  the  two  or 
three 

High  souls,  like  those  far  stars  that 
come  in  sight 
Once  in  a  century  ;  — 

But  better  far  it  is  to  speak 
One  simple  word,  which  now  and  then 
Shall  waken  their  free  nature  in  the 
weak 

And  friendless  sons  of  men  ; 

To  write  some  earnest  verse  or  line, 
Which,  seeking  not  the  praise  of  art, 
Shall  make  a  clearer  faith  and  manhood 
shine 

In  the  untutored  heart. 


46 


MISCELLANEOUS  POEMS. 


He  who  doth  this,  in  verse  or  prose, 
May  be  forgotten  in  his  day, 
Bnt  surely  shall  be  crowned  at  last  with 
those 

Who  live  and  speak  for  aye. 


RHOECUS. 

God  sends  his  teachers  unto  every  age, 
To  every  clime,  and  every  race  of  men, 
With  revelations  fitted  to  their  growth 
And  shape  of  mind,  nor  gives  the  realm 
of  Truth 

Into  the  selfish  rule  of  one  sole  race : 
Therefore  each  form  of  worship  that  hath 
swayed 

The  life  of  man,  and  given  it  to  grasp 
The  master-key  of  knowledge,  rever- 
ence, 

Infolds  some  germs  of  goodness  and  of 
!     light ; 

Else  never  had  the  eager  soul,  which 
loathes 

The  slothful  down  of  pampered  igno- 
rance, 

Found  in  it  even  a  moment's  fitful  rest. 

There  is  an  instinct  in  the  human 
heart 

"Which  makes  that  all  the  fables  it  hath 
coined, 

To  justify  the  reign  of  its  belief 
And  strengthen  it   by  beauty's  right 
divine, 

Veil  in  their  inner  cells  a  mystic  gift, 
Which,  like  the  hazel  twig,  in  faithful 
hands, 

Points  surely  to  the  hidden  springs  of 
truth. 

For,  as  in  nature  naught  is  made  in  vain, 
But  all  things  have  within  their  hull  of 
use 

A  wisdom  and  a  meaning  which  may 
speak 

Of  spiritual  secrets  to  the  ear 
Of  spirit  ;  so,  in  whatsoe'er  the  heart 
Hath  fashioned  for  a  solace  to  itself, 
To  make  its  inspirations  suit  its  creed, 
And  from  the  niggard  hands  of  falsehood 
wring 

Its  needful  food  of  truth,  there  ever  is 
A  sympathy  with  Nature,  which  reveals, 
Not  less   than  her  own  works,  pure 

gleams  of  light 
And  earnest  parables  of  inward  lore. 
Hear  now  this  fairy  legend  of  old  Greece, 


As  full  of  freedom,  youth,  and  beauty 
still 

As  the  immortal  freshness  of  that  grace 
Carved  for  all  ages  on  some  Attic  frieze. 

A  youth  named  Rhcecus,  wandering  in 
the  wood, 

Saw  an  old  oak  just  trembling  to  its  fall, 
And,  feeling  pity  of  so  fair  a  tree, 
He  propped  its  gray  trunk  with  admir- 
ing care, 

And  with  a  thoughtless  footstep  loitered 
on. 

But,  as  he  turned,  he  heard  a  voice  be- 
hind 

That  murmured  "  Rhcecus  !  "  'T  was  as 
if  the  leaves, 

Stirred  by  a  passing  breath,  had  mur- 
mured it, 

And,  while  he  paused  bewildered,  yet 
again 

It  murmured  "  Rhcecus  !  "  softer  than  a 
breeze. 

He  started  and  beheld  with  dizzy  eyes 
What  seemed  the  substance  of  a  happy 
dream 

Stand  there  before  him,  spreading  a  warm 
glow 

Within  the  green  glooms  of  the  shadowy 
oak. 

It  seemed  a  woman's  shape,  yet  all  too 
fair 

To  be  a  woman,  and  with  eyes  too  meek 
For  any  that  were  wont  to  mate  with 
gods. 

All  naked  like  a  goddess  stood  she  there, 
And  like  a  goddess  all  too  beautiful 
To   feel  the  guilt- born  earthliness  of 
shame. 

"  Rhoecus,  I  am  the  Dryad  of  this  tree," 
Thus  she  began,  dropping  her  low-toned 
words 

Serene,  and  full,  and  clear,  as  drops  of 
dew, 

"  And  with  it  I  am  doomed  to  live  and 
die  ; 

The  rain  and  sunshine  are  my  caterers, 
Nor  have  I  other  bliss  than  simple  life; 
Now  ask  me  what  thou  wilt,  that  I  can 
give, 

And  with  a  thankful  joy  it  shall  be 
thine." 

Then  Rhoecus,  with  a  flutter  at  the 
heart, 

Yet,  by  the  prompting  of  such  beauty, 
bold, 


EHCECUS. 


47 


Answered:  "What  is  there  that  can 
satisfy 

The  endless  craving  of  the  soul  but  love  ? 
Give  me  thy  love,  or  but  the  hope  of  that 
Which  must  be  evermore  my  nature's 
goal." 

After  a  little  pause  she  said  again, 
But  with  a  glimpse  of  sadness  in  her 
tone, 

"  I  give  it,  Rhcecus,  though  a  perilous 
gift; 

An  hour  before  the  sunset  meet  me  here." 
And  straightway  there  was  nothing  he 
could  see 

But  the  green  glooms  beneath  the  shad- 
owy oak, 

And  not  a  sound  came  to  his  straining 
ears 

But  the  low  trickling  rustle  of  the  leaves, 
And  far  away  upon  an  emerald  slope 
The  falter  of  an  idle  shepherd's  pipe. 

Now,  in  those  days  of  simpleness  and 
faith, 

Men  did  not  think  that  happy  things 

were  dreams 
Because  they  overstepped  the  narrow 

bourn 

Of  likelihood,  but  reverently  deemed 
Nothing  too  wondrous  or  too  beautiful 
To  be  the  guerdon  of  a  daring  heart. 
So  Rhcecus  made  no  doubt  that  he  was 
blest, 

And  all  along  unto  the  city's  gate 
Earth  seemed  to  spring  beneath  him  as 

he  walked, 
The  clear,  broad  sky  looked  bluer  than 

its  wont, 

And  he  could  scarce  believe  he  had  not 
wings, 

Such  sunshine  seemed  to  glitter  through 
his  veins 

Instead  of  blood,  so  light  he  felt  and 
strange. 

Young  Rhcecus  had  a  faithful  heart 
enough, 

But  one  that  in  the  present  dwelt  too 
much, 

And,  taking  with  blithe  welcome  what- 
soe'er 

Chance  gave  of  joy,  was  wholly  bound 
in  that, 

Like  the  contented  peasant  of  a  vale, 
Deemed  it  the  world,  and  never  looked 
beyond. 

So,  haply  meeting  in  the  afternoon 


Some  comrades  who  were  playing  at  the 
dice, 

He  joined  them,  and  forgot  all  else  be- 
side. 

The  dice  were  rattling  at  the  mer- 
riest, 

And  Rhcecus,  who  had  met  but  sorry 
luck, 

Just  laughed  in  triumph  at  a  happy 
throw, 

When  through  the  room  there  hummed 
a  yellow  bee  . 

That  buzzed  about  his  ear  with  down- 
dropped  legs 

As  if  to  light.  And  Rhcecus  laughed 
and  said, 

Feeling  how  red  and  flushed  he  was  with 
loss, 

"  By  Venus  !  does  he  take  me  for  a 
rose  ? " 

And  brushed  him  off  with  rough,  im- 
patient hand. 

But  still  the  bee  came  back,  and  thrice 
again 

Rhcecus  did  beat  him  off  with  growing 
wrath. 

Then  through  the  window  flew  the 

wounded  bee, 
And  Rhcecus,  tracking  him  writh  angry 

eyes, 

Saw  a  sharp  mountain-peak  of  Thessaly 
Against  the  red  disk  of  the  setting  sun,  — 
And  instantly  the  blood  sank  from  his 
heart, 

As  if  its  very  walls  had  caved  away. 
Without  a  word  he  turned,  and,  rushing 
forth, 

Ran  madly  through  the  city  and  the  gate, 
And  o'er  the  plain,  which  now  the  wood's 

long  shade, 
By  the  low  sun  throwm  forward  broad 

and  dim, 

Darkened  wellnigh  unto  the  city's  wall. 

Quite  spent  and  out  of  breath  he 
reached  the  tree, 
And,  listening  fearfully,  he  heard  once 
more 

The  low  voice  murmur  "Rhcecus  !  "  close 
at  hand : 

Whereat  he  looked  around  him,  but  could 

see 

Naught  but  the  deepening  glooms  be- 
neath the  oak. 

Then  sighed  the  voice,  "0  Rhcecus! 
nevermore 


48 


MISCELLANEOUS  POEMS. 


Shalt  thou  behold  me  or  by  day  or  night, 
Me,  who  would  fain  have  blessed  thee 

with  a  love 
More  ripe  and  bounteous  than  ever  yet 
Filled  up  with  nectar  any  mortal  heart : 
But  thou  didst  scorn  my  humble  mes- 
senger, 

And  sent'st  him  back  to  me  with  bruised 
wings. 

We  spirits  only  show  to  gentle  eyes, 
We  ever  ask  an  undivided  love, 
And  he  who  scorns  the  least  of  Nature's 
works 

Is  thenceforth  exiled  and  shut  out  from 
all. 

Farewell !  for  thou  canst  never  see  me 
more." 

Then  Rhcecus  beat  his  breast,  and 
groaned  aloud, 
And  cried,  "  Be  pitiful !  forgive  me  yet 
This  once,  and  I  shall  never  need  it 
more ! " 

"  Alas  !  "  the  voice  returned,  "  't  is  thou 

art  blind, 
Not  I  unmerciful ;  I  can  forgive, 
But  have  no  skill  to  heal  thy  spirit's 

eyes ; 

Only  the  soul  hath  power  o'er  itself." 
With  that  again  there  murmured  "Nev- 
ermore! " 

And  Rhcecus  after  heard  no  other  sound, 
Except  the  rattling  of  the  oak's  crisp 
leaves, 

Like  the  long  surf  upon  a  distant  shore, 
Raking  the  sea-worn  pebbles  up  and 
down. 

The  night  had  gathered  round  him :  o'er 
the  plain 

The  city  sparkled  with  its  thousand 
lights, 

And  sounds  of  revel  fell  upon  his  ear 
Harshly  and  like  a  curse;  above,  the  sky, 
With  all  its  bright  sublimity  of  stars, 
Deepened,  and  on  his  forehead  smote  the 
breeze  : 

Beauty  was  all  around  him  and  de- 
light, 

But  from  that  eve  he  was  alone  on  earth. 


THE  FALCON. 

I  know  a  falcon  swift  and  peerless 
As  e'er  was  cradled  in  the  pine; 

No  bird  had  ever  eye  so  fearless, 
Or  wing  so  strong  as  this  of  mine. 


The  winds  not  better  love  to  pilot 
A  cloud  with  molten  gold  o'errun, 

Than  him,  a  little  burning  islet, 
A  star  above  the  coming  sun. 

For  with  a  lark's  heart  he  doth  tower, 
By  a  glorious  upward  instinct  drawn  ; 

No  bee  nestles  deeper  in  the  flower 
Than  he  in  the  bursting  rose  of  dawn. 

No  harmless  dove,  no  bird  that  singeth, 
Shudders  to  see  him  overhead  ; 

The  rush  of  his  tierce  swooping  bringeth 
To  innocent  hearts  no  thrill  of  dread. 

Let  fraud  and  wrong  and  baseness  shiver, 
For  still  between  them  and  the  sky 

The  falcon  Truth  hangs  poised  forever 
And  marks  them  with  his  vengeful  eye. 


TRIAL. 
I. 

Whether  the  idle  prisoner  through  his 
grate 

Watches  the  waving  of  the  grass-tuft 
small, 

Which,  having  colonized  its  rift  i'  the 
wall, 

Takes  its  free  risk  of  good  or  evil  fate, 
And  from  the  sky's  just  helmet  draws  its 
lot 

Daily  of  shower  or  sunshine,  cold  or 
hot  ;— 

Whether  the  closer  captive  of  a  creed, 
Cooped  up  from  birth  to  grind  out  end- 
less chaff, 

Sees  through  his  treadmill- bars  the  noon- 
day laugh, 

And  feels  in  vain  his  crumpled  pinions 
breed ;  — 

Whether  the  Georgian  slave  look  up  and 
mark, 

With  bellying  sails  puffed  full,  the  tall 

cloud-bark 
Sink  northward  slowly,  —  thou  alone 

seem'st  good, 
Fair  only  thou,  0  Freedom,  whose  desire 
Can  light  in  muddiest  souls  quick  seeds 

of  fire, 

And  strain  life's  chords  to  the  old  heroic 
mood. 

II. 

Yet  are  there  other  gifts  more  fair  than 
thine, 

Nor  can  I  count  him  happiest  who  has 
never 


A  GLANCE  BEHIND  THE  CURTAIN. 


49 


Been  forced  with  his  own  hand  his  chains 
to  sever, 

And  for  himself  find  out  the  way  divine  ; 
He  never  knew  the  aspirer's  glorious 
pains, 

He  never  earned  the  struggle's  priceless 
gains. 

0,  block  by  block,  with  sore  and  sharp 
endeavor, 

Lifelong  we  build  these  human  natures 
up 

Into  a  temple  fit  for  freedom's  shrine, 
And  Trial  ever  consecrates  the  cup 
Wherefrom  we  pour  her  sacrificial  wine. 


A  GLANCE  BEHIND  THE  CURTAIN. 

We  see  but  half  the  causes  of  our  deeds, 
Seeking  them  wholly  in  the  outer  life, 
And  heedless  of  the  encircling  spirit- 
world, 

"Which,  though  unseen,  is  felt,  and  sows 
in  us 

All  germs  of  pure  and  world-wide  pur- 
poses. 

From  one  stage  of  our  being  to  the  next 
We  pass  unconscious  o'er  a  slender  bridge, 
The  momentary  work  of  unseen  hands, 
Which  crumbles  down  behind  us ;  look- 
ing back, 

We  see  the  other  shore,  the  gulf  between, 
And,  marvelling  how  we  won  to  where 
we  stand, 

Content  ourselves  to  call  the  builder 
Chance. 

We  trace  the  wisdom  to  the  apple's  fall, 
Not  to  the  birth-throes  of  a  mighty 
Truth 

Which,  for  long  ages  in  blank  Chaos 
dumb, 

Yet  yearned  to  be  incarnate,  and  had 
found 

At  last  a  spirit  meet  to  be  the  womb 
From  which  it  might  be  born  to  bless 

mankind,  — 
Not  to  the  soul  of  Newton,  ripe  with  all 
The  hoarded  thoughtfulness  of  earnest 

years, 

And  waiting  but  one  ray  of  sunlight 

more 
To  blossom  fully. 

But  whence  came  that  ray  ? 
We  call  our  sorrows  Destiny,  but  ought 
Rather  to  name  our  high  successes  so. 
Only  the  instincts  of  great  souls  are  Fate, 
4 


And  have  predestined  sway :  all  other 
things, 

Except  by  leave  of  us,  could  never  be. 
For  Destiny  is  but  the  breath  of  God 
Still  moving  in  us,  the  last  fragment  left 
Of  our  unfallen  nature,  waking  oft 
Within  our  thought,  to  beckon  us  be- 
yond 

The  narrow  circle  of  the  seen  and  known, 
And  always  tending  to  a  noble  end, 
As  all  things  must  that  overrule  the  soul, 
And  for  a  space  unseat  the  helmsman, 
Will. 

The  fate  of  England  and  of  freedom  once 
Seemed  wavering  in  the  heart  of  one 

plain  man : 
One  step  of  his,  and  the  great  dial-hand, 
That  marks  the  destined  progress  of  the 

world 

In  the  eternal  round  from  wisdom  on 
To  higher  wisdom,  had  been  made  to 
pause 

A  hundred  years.    That  step  he  did  not 
take,  — 

He  knew  not  why,  nor  we,  but  only 
God,— 

And  lived  to  make  his  simple  oaken  chair 
More  terrible  and  grandly  beautiful, 
More  full  of  majesty  than  any  throne, 
Before  or  after,  of  a  British  king. 

Upon  the  pier  stood  two  stern-visaged 
men, 

Looking  to  where  a  little  craft  lay 
moored, 

Swayed  by  the  lazy  current  of  the 
Thames, 

Which  weltered  by  in  muddy  listlessness. 
Grave  men  they  were,  and  battlings  of 

fierce  thought 
Had  trampled  out  all  softness  from  their 

brows, 

And  ploughed  rough  furrows  there  before 

their  time, 
For  other  crop  than  such  as  homebred 

Peace 

Sows  broadcast  in  the  willing  soil  of 
Youth. 

Care,  not  of  self,  but  of  the  common- 
weal, 

Had  robbed  their  eyes  of  youth,  and  left 
instead 

A  look  of  patient  power  and  iron  will, 
And  something  fiercer,  too,  that  gave 

broad  hint 
Of  the  plain  weapons  girded  at  their 

sides. 


50 


MISCELLANEOUS  POEMS. 


The  younger  had  an  aspect  of  com- 
mand, — 

Not  such  as  trickles  down,  a  slender 
stream, 

In  the  shrunk  channel  of  a  great  de- 
scent, 

But  such  as  lies  entowered  in  heart  and 
head, 

And  an  arm  prompt  to  do  the  'hests  of 
both. 

His  was  a  brow  where  gold  were  out  of 
place, 

And  yet  it  seemed  right  worthy  of  a 
crown 

(Though  he  despised  such),  were  it  only 
made 

Of  iron,  or  some  serviceable  stuff 

That  would  have  matched  his  sinewy 

brown  face. 
The  elder,  although  such  he  hardly 

seemed 

(Care  makes  so  little  of  some  five  short 
years), 

Had  a  clear,  honest  face,  whose  rough- 
hewn  strength 

Was  mildened  by  the  scholar's  wiser 
heart 

To  sober  courage,  such  as  best  befits 
The  unsullied  temper  of  a  well-taught 
mind, 

Yet  so  remained  that  one  could  plainly 
guess 

The  hushed  volcano  smouldering  under- 
neath. 

He  spoke :  the  other,  hearing,  kept  his 
gaze 

Still  fixed,  as  on  some  problem  in  the 
sky. 

"0  Cromwell,  we  are  fallen  on  evil 
times  ! 

There  was  a  day  when  England  had  wide 
room 

For  honest  men  as  well  as  foolish  kings  : 
But  now  the  uneasy  stomach  of  the  time 
Turns  squeamish  at  them  both.  There- 
fore let  us 

Seek  out  that  savage  clime,  where  men 
as  yet 

Are  free :  there  sleeps  the  vessel  on  the 
tide, 

Her  languid  canvas  drooping  for  the 
wind  ; 

Give  us  but  that,  and  what  need  we  to 
fear 

This  Order  of  the  Council?  The  free 
waves 


Will  not  say,  No,  to  please  a  wayward 
king, 

Nor  will  the  winds  turn  traitors  at  his 

beck  : 

All  things  are  fitly  cared  for,  and  the 
Lord 

Will  watch  as  kindly  o'er  the  exodus 
Of  us  his  servants  now,  as  in  old  time. 
We  have  no  cloud  or  fire,  and  haply  we 
May  not  pass  dry-shod  through  the 

ocean-stream  ; 
But,  saved  or  lost,  all  things  are  in  His 

hand." 

So  spake  he,  and  meantime  the  other 
stood 

With  wide  gray  eyes  still  reading  the 

blank  air, 
As  if  upon  the  sky's  blue  wall  he  saw 
Some  mystic  sentence,  written  by  a  hand, 
Such  as  of  old  made  pale  the  Assyrian 

king, 

Girt  with  his  satraps  in  the  blazing  feast. 

"Hampden!  a  moment  since,  my 
purpose  was 
To  fly  with  thee, — for  I  will  call  it 
flight, 

Nor  flatter  it  with  any  smoother  name,  — 
But  something  in  me  bids  me  not  to  go ; 
And  I  am  one,  thou  knowest,  who,  un- 
moved 

By  what  the  weak  deem  omens,  yet  give 
heed 

And  reverence  due  to  whatsoe'er  my  soul 
Whispers  of  warning  to  the  inner  ear. 
Moreover,  as  I  know  that  God  brings 
round 

His  purposes  in  ways  undreamed  by  us, 
And  makes  the  wicked  but  his  instru- 
ments 

To  hasten  their  own  swift  and  sudden  fall, 
I  see  the  beauty  of  his  providence 
In  the  King's  order  :  blind,  he  will  not 
let 

His  doom  part  from  him,  but  must  bid 

it  stay 

As  't  were  a  cricket,  whose  enlivening 
chirp 

He  loved  to  hear  beneath  his  very  hearth. 
Why  should  we  fly?    Nay,  why  not 

rather  stay 
And  rear  again*  our  Zion's  crumbled 

walls, 

Not,  as  of  old  the  walls  of  Thebes  were 
built, 

By  minstrel  twanging,   but,  if  need 
should  be, 


A  GLANCE  BEHIND  THE  CURTAIN. 


51 


With  the  more  potent  music  of  our 
swords  ? 

Think'st  thou  that  score  of  men  beyond 
the  sea 

Claim  more  God's  care  than  all  of  Eng- 
land here  ? 

No:  when  he  moves  His  arm,  it  is  to 
aid 

Whole  peoples,  heedless  if  a  few  be 
crushed, 

As  some  are  ever,  when  the  destiny 
Of  man  takes  one  stride  onward  nearer 
home. 

Believe  it,  'tis  the  mass  of  men  He 
loves; 

And,  where  there  is  most  sorrow  and 

most  want, 
Where  the  high  heart  of  man  is  trodden 

down 

The  most,  't  is  not  because  He  hides  his 
face 

From  them  in  wrath,  as  purblind  teach- 
ers prate : 

Not  so  :  there  most  is  He,  for  there  is 
He 

Most  needed.  Men  who  seek  for  Fate 
abroad 

Are  not  so  near  His  heart  as  they  who 
dare 

Frankly  to  face  her  where  she  faces  them, 
On  their  own  threshold,  where  their  souls 
are  strong 

To  grapple  with  and  throw  her;  as  I 
once, 

Being  yet  a  boy,  did  cast  this  puny  king, 
Who  now  has  grown  so  dotard  as  to 
deem 

That  he  can  wrestle  with  an  angry  realm, 
And  throw  the  brawned  Antteus  of  men's 
rights. 

No,  Hampden  !  they  have  half-way  con- 
quered Fate 

Who  go  half-way  to  meet  her,  —  as 
will  I. 

Freedom  hath  yet  a  work  for  me  to  do  ; 
So  speaks  that  inward  voice  which  never 
yet 

Spake  falsely,  when  it  urged  the  spirit 
on 

To  noble  deeds  for  country  and  mankind. 
And,  for  success,  I  ask  no  more  than 
this,  — 

To  bear  unflinching  witness  to  the  truth. 
All  true  whole  men  succeed ;  for  what  is 
worth 

Success's  name,  unless  it  be  the  thought, 
The  inward  surety,  to  have  carried  out 


A  noble  purpose  to  a  noble  end, 
Although  it  be  the  gallows  or  the  block  ? 
'T  is  only  Falsehood  that  doth  ever  need 
These  outward  shows  of  gain  to  bolster 
her. 

Be  it  we  prove  the  weaker  with  our 
swords  ; 

Truth  only  needs  to  be  for  once  spoke 
out, 

And  there 's  such  music  in  her,  such 

strange  rhythm, 
As  makes  men's  memories  her  joyous 

slaves, 

And  clings  around  the  soul,  as  the  sky 
clings 

Kound  the  mute  earth,  forever  beauti- 
ful, 

And,  if  o'erclouded,  only  to  burst  forth 
More  all-embracingly  divine  and  clear  : 
Get  but  the  truth  once  uttered,  and 't  is 
like 

A  star  new-born,  that  drops  into  its 
place, 

And  which,  once  circling  in  its  placid 
round, 

Not  all  the  tumult  of  the  earth  can 
shake. 

"What  should  we  do  in  that  small 
colony 

Of  pinched  fanatics,  who  would  rather 
choose 

Freedom  to  clip  an  inch  more  from  their 
hair, 

Than  the  great  chance  of  setting  Eng- 
land free  ? 

Not  there,  amid  the  stormy  wilderness, 

Should  we  learn  wisdom  ;  or  if  learned, 
what  room 

To  put  it  into  act,  —  else  worse  than 
naught  ? 

We  learn  our  souls  more,  tossing  for  an 
hour 

Upon  this  huge  and  ever- vexed  sea 
Of  human  thought,  where  kingdoms  go 
to  wreck 

Like  fragile  bubbles  yonder  in  the 
stream, 

Than  in  a  cycle  of  New  England  sloth, 
Broke  only  by  some  petty  Indian  war, 
Or  quarrel  for  a  letter  more  or  less 
In   some  hard  \vord,  which,  spelt  in 

either  way, 
Not  their  most  learned  clerks  can  un- 
derstand. 

New  times  demand  new  measures  and 
new  men; 


52 


MISCELLANEOUS  POEMS. 


The  world  advances,  and  in  time  out- 
grows 

The  laws  that  in  our  fathers'  day  were 
best ; 

And,  doubtless,  after  us,  some  purer 
scheme 

Will  be  shaped  out  by  wiser  men  than 
we, 

Made  wiser  by  the  steady  growth  of 
truth. 

We  cannot  bring  Utopia  by  force  ; 
But  better,  almost,  be  at  work  in  sin, 
Than  in  a  brute  inaction  browse  and 
sleep. 

No  man  is  born  into  the  world,  whose 
work 

Is  not  born  with  him ;  there  is  always 
work, 

And  tools  to  work  withal,  for  those  who 
will; 

And  blessed  are  the  horny  hands  of  toil ! 
The  busy  world  shoves  angrily  aside 
The  man  who  stands  with  arms  akimbo 
set, 

Until  occasion  tells  him  what  to  do  ; 
And  he  who  waits  to  have  his  task 

marked  out 
Shall  die  and  leave  his  errand  unfulfilled. 
Our  time  is  one  that  calls  for  earnest 

deeds : 

Reason  and  Government,  like  two  broad 

seas, 

Yearn  for  each  other  with  outstretched 
arms 

Across  this  narrow  isthmus  of  the  throne, 
And  roll  their  white  surf  higher  every 
day. 

One  age  moves  onward,  and  the  next 
builds  up 

Cities  and  gorgeous  palaces,  where  stood 
The  rude  log  huts  of  those  who  tamed 
the  wild, 

Rearing  from  out  the  forests  they  had 
felled 

The  goodly  framework  of  a  fairer  state ; 
The  builder's  trowel  and  the  settler's  axe 
Are  seldom   wielded   by  the  selfsame 
hand ; 

Ours  is  the  harder  task,  yet  not  the  less 
Shall  we  receive  the  blessing  for  our  toil 
From  the  choice  spirits  of  the  aftertime. 
My  soul  is  not  a  palace  of  the  past, 
Where  outworn  creeds,  like  Rome's  gray 

senate,  quake, 
Hearing  afar  the  Vandal's  trumpet  hoarse, 
That  shakes  old  systems  with  a  thunder- 

at. 


The  time  is  ripe,  and  rotten-ripe,  for 

change ; 

Then  let  it  come:  I  have  no  dread  of 
what 

Is  called  for  by  the  instinct  of  mankind  ; 
Nor  think  I  that  God's  world  will  fall 
apart 

Because  we  tear  a  parchment  more  or 
less. 

Truth  is  eternal,  but  her  effluence, 
With  endless  change,  is  fitted  to  the 
hour ; 

Her  mirror  is  turned  forward  to  reflect 
The  promise  of  the  future,  not  the  past. 
He  who  would  win  the  name  of  truly 
great 

Must  understand  his  own  age  and  the 
next, 

And  make  the  present  ready  to  fulfil 
Its  prophecy,  and  with  the  future  merge 
Gently  and  peacefully,  as  wave  with 
wave. 

The  future  works  out  great  men's  des- 
tinies ; 

The  present  is  enough  for  common  souls, 
Who,  never  looking  forward,  are  indeed 
Mere  clay,  wherein  the  footprints  of 

their  age 
Are  petrified  forever  :  better  those 
Who  lead  the  blind  old  giant  by  the 

hand 

From  out  the  pathless  desert  where  he 
gropes, 

And  set  him  onward  in  his  darksome 
way. 

I  do  not  fear  to  follow  out  the  truth, 
Albeit  along  the  precipice's  edge. 
Let  us  speak  plain  :  there  is  more  force 
in  names 

Than  most  men  dream  of  ;  and  a  lie  may 
keep 

Its  throne  a  whole  age  longer,  if  it  skulk 
Behind  the  shield  of  some  fair-seeming 
name. 

Let  us  call  tyrants  tyrants,  and  main- 
tain 

That  only  freedom  comes  by  grace  of 
God, 

And  all  that  comes  not  by  his  grace  must 
fall; 

For  men  in  earnest  have  no  time  tc  waste 
In  patching  fig-leaves  for  the  naked 
truth. 

"I  will  have  one  more  grapple  with 
the  man 

Charles  Stuart :  whom  the  boy  o'ercame, 


A  GLANCE  BEHIND  THE  CUETAIN. 


53 


The  man  stands  not  in  awe  of.    I,  per- 
chance, 

Am  one  raised  up  by  the  Almighty  arm 
To  witness  some  great  truth  to  all  the 
world. 

Souls  destined  to  o'erleap  the  vulgar  lot, 
And  mould  the  world  unto  the  scheme 
of  God, 

Have  a  fore-consciousness  of  their  high 
doom, 

As  men  are  known  to  shiver  at  the  heart 
When  the  cold  shadow  of  some  coming 
ill 

Creeps  slowly  o'er  their  spirits  unawares. 
Hath  Good  less  power  of  prophecy  than 
111? 

How  else  could  men  whom  God  hath 

called  to  sway 
Earth's  rudder,  and  to  steer  the  bark  of 

Truth, 

Beating  against  the  tempest  tow'rd  her 
port, 

Bear  all  the  mean  and  buzzing  griev- 
ances, 

The  petty  martyrdoms,  wherewith  Sin 
strives 

To  weary  out  the  tethered  hope  of  Faith, 
The  sneers,  the  unrecognizing  look  of 
friends, 

Who  worship  the  dead  corpse  of  old  king 
Custom, 

Where  it  doth  lie  in  state  within  the 
Church, 

Striving  to  cover  up  the  mighty  ocean 
With  a  man's  palm,  and  making  even 
the  truth 

Lie  for  them,  holding  up  the  glass  re- 
versed, 

To  make  the  hope  of  man  seem  farther 
off? 

My  God !  when  I  read  o'er  the  bitter  lives 
Of  men  whose  eager  hearts  were  quite 
too  great 

To  beat  beneath  the  cramped  mode  of 
the  day, 

And  see  them  mocked  at  by  the  world 
they  love, 

Haggling  with  prejudice   for  penny- 
worths 

Of  that  reform  which  their  hard  toil  will 
make 

The  common  birthright  of  the  age  to 
come,  — 

When  I  see  this,  spite  of  my  faith  in 
God, 

I  marvel  how  their  hearts  bear  up  so 
long ; 


Nor  could  they  but  for  this  same  proph- 
ecy, 

This  inward  feeling  of  the  glorious  end. 

"Deem  me  not  fond;  but  in  my 

warmer  youth, 
Ere  my  heart's  bloom  was  soiled  and 

brushed  away, 
I  had  great  dreams  of  mighty  things  to 

come ; 

Of  conquest,  whether  by  the  sword  or 
pen 

I  knew  not ;  but  some  conquest  I  would 
have, 

Or  else  swift  death :  now  wiser  grown  in 
years, 

I  find  youth's  dreams  are  but  the  flut- 

terings 

Of  those  strong  wings  whereon  the  soul 

shall  soar 
In  after  time  to  win  a  starry  throne ; 
And  so  I  cherish  them,  for  they  were  lots, 
Which  I,  a  boy,  cast  in  the  helm  of 

Fate. 

Now  will  I  draw  them,  since  a  man's 

right  hand, 
A  right  hand  guided  by  an  earnest  soul, 
With  a  true  instinct,  takes  the  golden 

prize 

From  out  a  thousand  blanks.  What 

men  call  luck 
Is  the  prerogative  of  valiant  souls, 
The  fealty  life  pays  its  rightful  kings. 
The  helm  is  shaking  now,  and  I  will  stay 
To  pluck  my  lot  forth ;  it  were  sin  to 

liee!" 

So  they  two  turned  together ;  one  to 
die, 

Fighting  for  freedom  on  the  bloody  field ; 
The  other,  far  more  happy,  to  become 
A  name  earth  wears  forever  next  her 
heart ; 

One  of  the  few  that  have  a  right  to  rank 
With  the  true  Makers:  for  his  spirit 
wrought 

Order  from  Chaos;  proved  that  right 
divine 

Dwelt  only  in  the  excellence  of  truth  ; 
And  far  within  old  Darkness'  hostile 
lines 

Advanced  and  pitched  the  shining  tents 
of  Light. 

Nor  shall  the  grateful  Muse  forget  to 
tell, 

That  —  not  the  least  among  his  many 
claims 


54 


MISCELLANEOUS  POEMS. 


To  deathless  honor  —  he  was  Milton's 
friend, 

A  man  not  second  among  those  who 
lived 

To  show  us  that  the  poet's  lyre  demands 
An  arm  of  tougher  sinew  than  the  sword. 


A  CHIPPEWA  LEGEND.* 

a\yeiva  fiev  /mot  icai  Ae'yetf  £<tt\v  rdSe 
aAyos  6*e  criyav. 

iEscHYLUS,  Prom.  Vinct.  197,  198. 

The  old  Chief,  feeling  now  wellnigh 
his  end, 

Called  his  two  eldest  children  to  his  side, 
And  gave  them, in  few  words,  his  parting 
charge ! 

"  My  son  and  daughter,  me  ye  see  no 
more ; 

The  happy  hunting-grounds  await  me, 
green 

With  change  of  spring  and  summer 

through  the  year  : 
But,  for  remembrance,  after  I  am  gone, 
Be  kind  to  little  Sheemah  for  my  sake : 
Weakling  he  is  and  young,  and  knows 

not  yet 

To  set  the  trap,  or  draw  the  seasoned 
bow ; 

Therefore  of  both  your  loves  he  hath 

more  need, 
And  he,  who  needeth  love,  to  love  hath 

right ; 

It  is  not  like  our  furs  and  stores  of  corn, 
Whereto  we  claim  sole  title  by  our  toil, 
But  the  Great  Spirit  plants  it  in  our 
hearts, 

And  waters  it,  and  gives  it  sun,  to  be 
The  common  stock  and  heritage  of  all : 
Therefore  be  kind  to  Sheemah,  that 

yourselves 
May  not  be  left  deserted  in  your  need." 

Alone,  beside  a  lake,  their  wigwam 
stood, 

Far  from  the  other  dwellings  of  their 
tribe ; 

And,  after  many  moons,  the  loneliness 
Wearied  the  elder  brother,  and  he  said, 
"Why  should  I  dwell  here  all  alone, 
shut  out 

From  the  free,  natural  joys  that  fit  my 
age? 

*  For  the  leading  incidents  in  this  tale  I 
am  indebted  to  the  very  valuable  "  Algic 
Researches  "  of  Henry  R.  Schoolcraft,  Esq. 


Lo,  I  am  tall  and  strong,  well  skilled  to 
hunt, 

Patient  of  toil  and  hunger,  and  not  yet 
Have  seen  the  danger  which  I  dared  not 
look 

Full  in  the  face ;  what  hinders  me  to  be 
A  mighty  Brave  and  Chief  among  my 
kin?" 

So,  taking  up  his  arrows  and  his  bow, 
As  if  to  hunt,  he  journeyed  swiftly  on, 
Until  he  gained  the  wigwams  of  his 
tribe, 

Where,  choosing  out  a  bride,  he  soon 
forgot, 

In  all  the  fret  and  bustle  of  new  life, 
The  little  Sheemah  and  his  father's 
charge. 

Now  when  the  sister  found  her  brother 
gone, 

And  that,  for  many  days,  he  came  not 
back, 

She  wept  for  Sheemah  more  than  for 
herself ; 

For  Love  bides  longest  in  a  woman's 
heart, 

And  flutters  many  times  before  he  flies, 
And  then  doth  perch  so  nearly,  that  a 
word 

May  lure  him  back,  as  swift  and  glad  as 
light; 

And  Duty  lingers  even  when  Love  is 
gone, 

Oft  looking  out  in  hope  of  his  return ; 
And,  after  Duty  hath  been  driven  forth, 
Then  Selfishness  creeps  in  the  last  of  all, 
Warming  her  lean  hands  at  the  lonely 
hearth, 

And  crouching  o'er  the  embers,  to  shut 
out 

Whatever  paltry  warmth  and  light  are 
left, 

With  avaricious  greed,  from  all  beside. 
So,  for  long  months,  the  sister  hunted 
wide, 

And  cared  for  little  Sheemah  tenderly ; 
But,  daily  more  and  more,  the  loneliness 
Grew  wearisome,  and   to   herself  she 
sighed, 

"Am  I  not  fair?  at  least  the  glassy  pool, 
That  hath  no  cause  to  flatter,  tells  me  so  ; 
But,  0,  how  flat  and  meaningless  the  tale, 
Unless  it  tremble  on  a  lover's  tongue ! 
Beauty  hath  no  true  glass,  except  it  be 
In  the  sweet  privacy  of  loving  eyes." 
Thus  deemed  she  idly,  and  forgot  the 
lore 


A  CHIPPEWA  LEGEND. 


55 


Which  she  had  learned  of  nature  and  the 
woods, 

That  beauty's  chief  reward  is  to  itself, 
And  that  the  eyes  of  Love  reflect  alone 
The  inward  fairness,  which  is  blurred 
and  lost 

Unless  kept  clear  and  white  by  Duty's 
care. 

So  she  went  forth  and  sought  the  haunts 
of  men, 

And,  being  wedded,  in  her  household 
cares, 

Soon,  like  the  elder  brother,  quite  forgot 
The  little  Sheemah  and  her  father's 
charge. 

But  Sheemah,  left  alone  within  the 
lodge, 

Waited  and  waited,  with  a  shrinking 
heart, 

Thinking  each  rustle  was  his  sister's  step, 
Till  hope  grew  less  and  less,  and  then 
went  out, 

And  every  sound  was  changed  from  hope 
to  fear. 

Few  sounds  there  were  : — the  dropping 
of  a  nut, 

The  squirrel's  chirrup,  and  the  jay's 
harsh  scream, 

Autumn's  sad  remnants  of  blithe  Sum- 
mer's cheer, 

Heard  at  long  intervals,  seemed  but  to 
make 

The  dreadful  void  of  silence  silenter. 
Soon  what  small  store  his  sister  left  was 
gone, 

And,  through  the  Autumn,  he  made  shift 
to  live 

On  roots  and  berries,  gathered  in  much 
fear 

Of  wolves,  whose  ghastly  howl  he  heard 
ofttirnes, 

Hollow  and  hungry,  at  the  dead  of  night. 
But  Winter  came  at  last,  and,  when  the 
snow,  * 

Thick-heaped  for  gleaming  leagues  o'er 

hill  and  plain, 
Spread  its  unbroken  silence  over  all, 
Made  bold  by  hunger,  he  was  fain  to 

glean 

(More  sick  at  heart  than  Ruth,  and  all 
alone) 

After  the  harvest  of  the  merciless  wolf, 
Grim  Boaz,  who,  sharp-ribbed  and  gaunt, 
yet  feared 

A  thing  more  wild  and  starving  than 
himself; 


Till,  by  degrees,  the  wolf  and  he  grew 
friends, 

And  shared  together  all  the  winter 
through. 

Late  in  the  Spring,  when  all  the  ice 
was  gone, 

The  elder  brother,  fishing  in  the  lake, 
Upon  whose  edge  his  father's  wigwam 
stood, 

Heard  a  low  moaning  noise  upon  the 
shore : 

Half  like  a  child  it  seemed,  half  like  a 
wolf, 

And  straightway  there  was  something  in 
his  heart 

That  said,  44  It  is  thy  brother  Sheemah's 
voice." 

So,  paddling  swiftly  to  the  bank,  he  saw, 
Within  a  little  thicket  close  at  hand, 
A  child  that  seemed  fast  changing  to  a 
wolf, 

From  the  neck  downward,  gray  with 

shaggy  hair, 
That  still  crept  on  and  upward  as  he 

looked. 

The  face  was  turned  away,  but  well  he 
knew 

That  it  was  Sheemah's,  even  his  broth- 
er's face. 

Then  with  his  trembling  hands  he  hid 
his  eyes, 

And  bowed  his  head,  so  that  he  might 
not  see 

The  first  look  of  his  brother's  eyes,  and 
cried, 

' '  0  Sheemah!    0  my  brother,  speak  to 
me ! 

Dost  thou  not  know  me,  that  I  am  thy 
brother? 

Come  to  me,  little  Sheemah,  thou  shalt 
dwell 

With  me  henceforth,  and  know  no  care 

or  want !" 
Sheemah  was  silent  for  a  space,  as  if 
.'T  were  hard  to  summon  up  a  human 

voice, 

And,  when  he  spake,  the  sound  was  of 
a  wolf's : 

"I  know  thee  not,  nor  art  thou  what 

thou  say'st ; 
I  have  none  other  brethren  than  the 

wolves, 

And,  till  thy  heart  be  changed  from 

what  it  is, 
Thou  art  not  worthy  to  be  called  their 

kin." 


56 


MISCELLANEOUS  POEMS. 


Then  groaned  the  other,  with  a  choking 
tongue, 

"Alas!  my  heart  is  changed  right  bit- 
terly ; 

'T  is  shrunk  and  parched  within  me 

even  now!" 
And,  looking  upward  fearfully,  he  saw 
Only  a  wolf  that  shrank  away  and  ran, 
Ugly  and  fierce,  to  hide  among  the 

woods. 


STANZAS  ON  FREEDOM. 

Men  !  whose  boast  it  is  that  ye 
Come  of  fathers  brave  and  free, 
If  there  breathe  on  earth  a  slave, 
Are  ye  truly  free  and  brave? 
If  ye  do  not  feel  the  chain, 
"When  it  works  a  brother's  pain, 
Are  ye  not  base  slaves  indeed, 
Slaves  unworthy  to  be  freed  ? 

Women  !  who  shall  one  day  bear 
Sons  to  breathe  New  England  air, 
If  ye  hear,  without  a  blush, 
Deeds  to  make  the  roused  blood  rush 
Like  red  lava  through  your  veins, 
For  your  sisters  now  in  chains,  — 
Answer  !  are  ye  fit  to  be 
Mothers  of  the  brave  and  free  ? 

Is  true  Freedom  but  to  break 
Fetters  for  our  own  dear  sake, 
And,  with  leathern  hearts,  forget 
That  we  owe  mankind  a  debt  ? 
No !  true  freedom  is  to  share 
All  the  chains  our  brothers  wear, 
And,  with  heart  and  hand,  to  be 
Earnest  to  make  others  free  ! 

They  are  slaves  who  fear  to  speak 
For  the  fallen  and  the  weak  ; 
They  are  slaves  who  will  not  choose 
Hatred,  scoffing,  and  abuse, 
Rather  than  in  silence  shrink 
From  the  truth  they  needs  must  think  ; 
They  are  slaves  who  dare  not  be 
In  the  right  with  two  or  three. 


COLUMBUS. 

The  cordage  creaks  and  rattles  in  the 
wind, 

With  whims  of  sudden  hush;  the  reel- 
ing sea 


Now  thumps  like  solid  rock  beneath  the 
stern, 

Now  leaps  with  clumsy  wrath,  strikes 
short,  and,  falling 

Crumbled  to  whispery  foam,  slips  rus- 
tling down 

The  broad  backs  of  the  waves,  which 
jostle  and  crowd 

To  fling  themselves  upon  that  unknown 
shore, 

Their  used  familiar  since  the  dawn  of 
time, 

Whither  this  foredoomed  life  is  guided 
on 

To  sway  on  triumph's  hushed,  aspiring 

poise 

One  glittering  moment,  then  to  break 
fulfilled. 

How  lonely  is  the  sea's  perpetual  swing, 
The  melancholy  wash  of  endless  waves, 
The  sigh  of  some  grim  monster  unde- 
scried, 

Fear-painted  on  the  canvas  of  the  dark, 
Shifting  on  his  uneasy  pillow  of  brine  ! 
Yet  night  brings  more  companions  than 
the  day 

To  this  drear  waste  ;  new  constellations 
burn, 

And  fairer  stars,  with  whose  calm  height 
my  soul 

Finds  nearer  sympathy  than  with  my 
herd 

Of  earthen  souls,  wThose  vision's  scanty 
ring 

Makes  me  its  prisoner  to  beat  my  wings 
Against  the  cold  bars  of  their  unbe- 
lief. 

Knowing  in  vain  my  own  free  heaven 
beyond. 

0  God !  this  world,  so  crammed  with 
eager  life, 

That  comes  and  goes  and  wanders  back 
to  silence 

Like  the  idle  wind,  which  yet  man's 
shaping  mind 

Can  make  his  drudge  to  swell  the  long- 
ing sails 

Of  highest  endeavor,  —  this  mad,  un- 

thrift  world, 
Which,  every  hour,  throws  life  enough 

away 

To  make  her  deserts  kind  and  hospita- 
ble, 

Lets  her  great  destinies  be  waved  aside 
By  smooth,  lip-reverent,  formal  infi- 
dels, 


COLUMBUS. 


57 


Who  weigh  the  God  they  not  believe 

with  gold, 
And  find  no  spot  in  Judas,  save  that  he, 
Driving  a  duller  bargain  than  he  ought, 
Saddled  his  guild  with  too  cheap  prece- 
dent. 

O  Faith  !  if  thou  art  strong,  thine  oppo- 
site 

Is  mighty  also,  and  the  dull  fool's  sneer 
Hath  ofttimes  shot  chill  palsy  through 

,  the  arm 
Just  lifted  to  achieve  its  crowning  deed, 
And  made  the  firm-based  heart,  that 

would  have  quailed 
The  rack  or  fagot,  shudder  like  a  leaf 
"Wrinkled  with  frost,  and  loose  upon  its 

stem. 

The  wicked  and  the  weak,  by  some  dark 
law, 

Have  a  strange  power  to  shut  and  rivet 
down 

Their  own  horizon  round  us,  to  unwing 
Oar  heaven-aspiring  visions,  and  to  blur 
With  surly  clouds  the  Future's  gleam- 
ing peaks, 

Far  seen  across  the  brine  of  thankless 
years. 

If  the  chosen  soul  could  never  be  alone 
In  deep  mid-silence,  open-doored  to  God, 
No  greatness  ever  had  been  dreamed  or 
done ; 

Among  dull  hearts    a  prophet  never 
grew  ; 

The  nurse  of  full-grown  souls  is  soli- 
tude. 

The  old  world  is  effete ;  there  man  with 
man 

Jostles,  and,  in  the  brawl  for  means  to 
live, 

Life  is  trod  underfoot, — Life,  the  one 
block 

Of  marble  that 's  vouchsafed  wherefrom 
to  carve 

Our  great  thoughts,  white  and  godlike, 

to  shine  down 
The  future,  Life,  the  irredeemable  block, 
Which  one  o'er-hasty  chisel-dint  oft 

mars, 

Scanting  our  room  to  cut  the  features 
out 

Of  our  full  hope,  so  forcing  us  to  crown 
With  a  mean  head  the  perfect  limbs,  or 
leave 

The  god's  face  glowing  o'er  a  satyr's 

trunk, 
Failure's  brief  epitaph. 


Yes,  Europe's  world 
Reels  on  to  judgment;  there  the  com- 
mon need, 
Losing  God's  sacred  use,  to  be  a  bond 
'Twixt  Me  and  Thee,  sets  each  one 

scowlingly 
O'er  his  own  selfish  hoard  at  bay;  no 
state, 

Knit  strongly  with  eternal  fibres  up 
Of  all  men's  separate  and  united  weals, 
Self-poised  and  sole  as  stars,  yet  one  as 
light, 

Holds  up  a  shape  of  large  Humanity 
To  which  by  natural  instinct  every 
man 

Pays  loyalty  exulting,  by  which  all 
Mould  their  own  lives,  and  feel  their 

pulses  filled 
With  the  red,  fiery  blood  of  the  general 

life, 

Making  them  mighty  in  peace,  as  now 
in  war 

They  are,  even  in  the  flush  of  victory, 
weak, 

Conquering  that  manhood  which  should 

them  subdue. 
And  what  gift  bring  I  to  this  untried 

world  ? 

Shall  the  same  tragedy  be  played  anew, 
And  the  same  lurid  curtain  drop  at 
last 

On  one  dread  desolation,  one  fierce  crash 
Of  that  recoil  which  on  its  makers  God 
Lets  Ignorance  and  Sin  and  Hunger 
make, 

Early  or  late?    Or  shall  that  common- 
wealth 

Whose  potent  unity  and  concentric  force 
Can  draw  these  scattered  joints  and 

parts  of  men 
Into  a  whole  ideal  man  once  more, 
Which  sucks  not  from  its  limbs  the  life 

away, 

But  sends  its  flood-tide  and  creates 
itself 

Over  again  in  every  citizen, 
Be  there  built  up  ?  For  me,  I  have  no 
choice ; 

I  might  turn  back  to  other  destinies, 
For  one  sincere  key  opes  all  Fortune's 
doors ; 

But  whoso  answers  not  God's  earliest 
call 

Forfeits  or  dulls  that  faculty  supreme 
Of  lying  open  to  his  genius 
Which  makes  the  wise  heart  certain  of 
its  ends. 


5S 


MISCELLANEOUS  POEMS. 


Here  am  I ;  for  what  end  God  knows, 
not  I ; 

Westward  still  points    the  inexorable 
sonl : 

Here  am  I,  with  no  friend  but  the  sad 
sea, 

The  beating  heart  of  this  great  enter- 
prise, 

"Which,  without  me,  would  stiffen  in 

swift  death ; 
This  have  I  mused  on,  since  mine  eye 

could  tirst 

Among  the  stars  distinguish  and  with 

joy 

Rest  on  that  God-fed  Pharos  of  the 
north, 

On  some  blue  promontory  of  heaven 
lighted 

That  juts  far  out  into  the  upper  sea ; 
To  this  one  hope  my  heart  hath  clung  for 
years, 

As  would  a  foundling  to  the  talisman 
Hung  round  his  neck  by  hands  he  knew 

not  whose ; 
A  poor,  vile  thing  and  dross  to  all  beside, 
Yet  he  therein  can  feel  a  virtue  left 
By  the  sad  pressure  of  a  mother's  hand, 
And  unto  him  it  still  is  tremulous 
With  palpitating  haste  and  wet  with 

tears, 

The  key  to  him  of  hope  and  humanness, 
The  coarse  shell  of  life's  pearl,  Expect- 
ancy. 

This  hope  hath  been  to  me  for  love  and 
fame, 

Hath  made  me  wholly  lonely  on  the 
earth, 

Building  me  up  as  in  a  thick-ribbed 
tower, 

Wherewith  enwalled  my  watching  spirit 
burned, 

Conquering  its  little  island  from  the 
Dark, 

Sole  as  a  scholar's  lamp,  and  heard  men's 
steps, 

In  the  far  hurry  of  the  outward  world, 
Pass  dimly  forth  and  back,  sounds  heard 
in  dream. 

As  Ganymede  by  the  eagle  was  snatched 
up 

From  the  gross  sod  to  be  Jove's  cup- 
bearer, 

So  was  I  lifted  by  my  great  design : 
And  who  hath  trod  Olympus,  from  his 
eye 

Fades  not  that  broader  outlook  of  the 
gods  ; 


His  life's  low  valleys  overbrow  earth's 
clouds, 

And  that  Olympian  spectre  of  the  past 
Looms  towering  up  in  sovereign  memory, 
Beckoning  his  soul  from  meaner  heights 
of  doom. 

Had  but  the  shadow  of  the  Thunderer's 
bird, 

Flashing  athwart  my  spirit,  made  of  me 
A  swift-betraying  vision's  Ganymede, 
Yet  to  have  greatly  dreamed  precludes 
low  ends  ; 

Great  days  have  ever  such  a  morning-red, 
On  such  a  base  great  futures  are  built  up, 
And  aspiration,  though  not  put  in  act, 
Comes  back  to  ask  its  plighted  troth 
again, 

Still  watches  round  its  grave  the  unlaid 
ghost 

Of  a  dead  virtue,  and  makes  other  hopes, 
Save  that  implacable  one,  seem  thin  and 
bleak 

As  shadows  of  bare  trees  upon  the  snow, 
Bound  freezing  there  by  the  unpitying 
moon. 

While  other  youths  perplexed  their  man- 
dolins, 

Praying  that  Thetis  would  her  lingers 
twine 

In  the  loose  glories  of  her  lover's  hair, 
And  wile  another  kiss  to  keep  back  day, 
I,  stretched  beneath  the  many-centuried 
shade 

Of  some  writhed  oak,  the  wood's  Lao- 
coon, 

Did  of  my  hope  a  dryad  mistress  make, 
Whom  I  would  woo  to  meet  me  privily, 
Or  underneath  the  stars,  or  when  the 
moon 

Flecked  all  the  forest  floor  with  scattered 
pearls. 

0  days  whose  memory  tames  to  fawning 

down 

The  surly  fell  of  Ocean's  bristled  neck  ! 

1  know  not  when  this  hope  enthralled 

me  first, 

But  from  my  boyhood  up  I  loved  to  hear 
The  tall  pine-forests  of  the  Apennine 
Murmur  their  hoary  legends  of  the  sea, 
Which  hearing,  I  in  vision  clear  beheld 
The  sudden  dark  of  tropic  night  shut 
down 

O'er  the  huge  whisper  of  great  watery 
wastes, 

The  while  a  pair  of  herons  trailingly 


COLUMBUS. 


59 


Flapped  inland,  where  some  league -wide 

river  hurled 
The  yellow  spoil  of  unconjectured  realms 
Far  through  a  gulfs  green  silence,  never 

scarred 

By  any  but  the  North-wind's  hurrying 
keels. 

And  not  the  pines  alone  ;  all  sights  and 
sounds 

To  my  world-seeking  heart  paid  fealty, 
And  catered  for  it  as  the  Cretan  bees 
Brought  honey  to  the  baby  Jupiter, 
Who  in  his  soft  hand  crushed  a  violet, 
Godlike  foremusing  the  rough  thunder's 
gripe ; 

Then  did  I  entertain  the  poet's  song, 
My  great  Idea's  guest,  and,  passing  o'er 
That  iron  bridge  the  Tuscan  built  to  hell, 
I  heard  Ulysses  tell  of  mountain-chains 
Whose  adamantine  links,  his  manacles, 
The  western  main  shook  growling,  and 

still  gnawed. 
I  brooded  on  the  wise  Athenian's  tale 
Of  happy  Atlantis,  and  heard  Bjorne's 

keel 

Crunch  the  gray  pebbles  of  the  Vinland 
shore : 

For  I  believed  the  poets ;  it  is  they 
Who  utter  wisdom  from  the  central  deep, 
And,  listening  to  the  inner  flow  of  things, 
Speak  to  the  age  out  of  eternity. 

Ah  me  !  old  hermits  sought  for  solitude 
In  caves  and  desert  places  of  the  earth, 
Where  their  own  heart-beat  was  the  only 
stir 

Of  living  thing  that  comforted  the  year  ; 
But  the  bald  pillar-top  of  Simeon, 
In  midnight's  blankest  waste,  were  pop- 
ulous, 

Matched  with  the  isolation '  drear  and 
deep 

Of  him  who  pines  among  the  swarm  of 
men, 

At  once  a  new  thought's  king  and  pris- 
oner, 

Feeling  the  truer  life  within  his  life, 
The  fountain  of  his  spirit's  prophecy, 
Sinking  away  and  wasting,  drop  by  drop, 
In  the  ungrateful  sands  of  sceptic  ears. 
He  in  the  palace-aisles  of  untrod  woods 
Doth  walk  a  king ;  for  him  the  pent-up 
cell 

Widens  beyond  the  circles  of  the  stars, 
And  all  the  sceptred  spirits  of  the  past 
Come  thronging  in  to  greet  him  as  their 
peer ; 


[  But  in  the  market-place's  glare  and 

I  throng 
He  sits  apart,  an  exile,  and  his  brow 
Aches  with  the  mocking  memory  of  its 
crown. 

But  to  the  spirit  select  there  is  no  choice  ; 

He  cannot  say,  This  will  I  do,  or  that, 

For  the  cheap  means  putting  Heaven's 
ends  in  pawn, 

And  bartering  his  bleak  rocks,  the  free- 
hold stern 

Of  destiny's  first-born,  for  smoother  fields 
That  yield  no  crop  of  self-denying  will ; 
A  hand  is  stretched  to  him  from  out  the 
dark, 

Which  grasping  without  question,  he  is 
led 

Where  there  is  work  that  he  must  do  for 
God. 

The  trial  still  is  the  strength's  comple- 
ment, 

And  the  uncertain,  dizzy  path  that  scales 
The  sheer  heights  of  supremest  purposes 
Is  steeper  to  the  angel  than  the  child. 
Chances  have  laws  as  fixed  as  planets 
have, 

And  disappointment's  dry  and  bitter 
root, 

Envy's  harsh  berries,  and  the  choking 
pool 

Of  the  world's  scorn,   are  the  right 

mother-milk 
To  the  tough  hearts  that  pioneer  their 

kind, 

And  break  a  pathway  to  those  unknown 
realms 

That  in  the  earth's  broad  shadow  lie 

enthralled ; 
Endurance  is  the  crowning  quality, 
And  patience  all  the  passion  of  great 

hearts  ; 

These  are  their  stay,  and  when  the  leaden 
world 

Sets  its  hard  face  against  their  fateful 
thought, 

And  brute  strength,  like  a  scornful  con- 
queror, 

Clangs  his  huge  mace  down  in  the  other 
scale, 

The  inspired  soul  but  flings  his  patience 
in, 

And  slowly  that  outweighs  the  ponderous 
globe,  — 

One  faith  against  a  whole  earth's  un- 
belief, 

One  soul  against  the  flesh  of  all  man- 
kind. 


60 


MISCELLANEOUS  POEMS. 


Thus  ever  seems  it  when  my  soul  can  hear 
The  voice  that  errs  not  ;  then  my  tri- 
umph gleams, 
O'er  the  blank  ocean  beckoning,  and  all 
night 

My  heart  Hies  on  before  me  as  I  sail  ; 
Far  on  I  see  my  lifelong  enterprise, 
"Which  rose  like  Ganges  mid  the  freezing 
snows 

Of  a  world's  solitude,  sweep  broadening 
down, 

And,  gathering  to  itself  a  thousand 
streams, 

Grow  sacred  ere  it  mingle  with  the  sea ; 
I  see  the  ungated  wall  of  chaos  old, 
With  blocks  Cyclopean  hewn  of  solid 
night, 

Fade  like  a  wreath  of  unreturning  mist 
Before  the  irreversible  feet  of  light  ;  — 
And  lo,  with  what  clear  omen  in  the  east 
On  day's  gray  threshold  stands  the  eager 
dawn, 

Like  young  Leander  rosy  from  the  sea 
Glowing  at  Hero's  lattice  ! 

One  day  more 
These  muttering  shoalbrains  leave  the 

helm  to  me  : 
God,  let  me  not  in  their  dull  ooze  be 

stranded  ; 

Let  not  this  one  frail  bark,  to  hollow 
which 

I  have  dug  out  the  pith  and  sinewy  heart 
Of  my  aspiring  life's  fair  trunk,  be  so 
Cast  up  to  warp  and  blacken  in  the  sun, 
Just  as  the  opposing  wind  'gins  whistle 
off 

His  cheek -swollen  pack,  and  from  the 

leaning  mast 
Fortune's  full  sail  strains  forward ! 

One  poor  day !  — 
Remember  whose  and  not  how  short  it 
is! 

It  is  God's  day,  it  is  Columbus's. 
A  lavish  day !    One  day,  with  life  and 
heart, 

Is  more  than  time  enough  to  find  a  world. 
1844. 


AN  INCIDENT  OF  THE  FIRE  AT 
HAMBURG. 

The  tower  of  old  Saint  Nicholas  soared 

upward  to  the  skies, 
Like  some  huge  piece  of  Nature's  make, 

the  growth  of  centuries ; 


You  could  not  deem  its  crowding  spires 

a  work  of  human  art, 
They  seemed  to  struggle  lightward  from 

a  sturdy  living  heart. 

Not  Nature's  self  more  freely  speaks  in 

crystal  or  in  oak, 
Than,  through  the  pious  builder's  hand, 

in  that  gray  pile  she  spoke ; 
And  as  from  acorn  springs  the  oak,  so, 

freely  and  alone, 
Sprang  from  his  heart  this  hymn  to  God, 

sung  in  obedient  stone. 

It  seemed  a  wondrous  freak  of  chance,  so 

perfect,  yet  so  rough, 
A  whim  of  Nature  crystallized  slowly  in 

granite  tough ; 
The  thick  spires  yearned  towards  the  sky 

in  quaint  harmonious  lines, 
And  in  broad  sunlight  basked  and  slept, 

like  a  grove  of  blasted  pines. 

Never  did  rock  or  stream  or  tree  lay  claim 

with  better  right 
To  all  the  adorning  sympathies  of  shadow 

and  of  light ; 
And,  in  that  forest  petrified,  as  forester 

there  dwells 
Stout  Herman,  the  old  sacristan,  sole 

lord  of  all  its  bells. 

Surge  leaping  after  surge,  the  fire  roared 
onward  red  as  blood, 

Till  half  of  Hamburg  lay  engulfed  be- 
neath the  eddying  flood ; 

For  miles  away  the  fiery  spray  poured 
down  its  deadly  rain, 

And  back  and  forth  the  billows  sucked, 
and  paused,  and  burst  again. 

From  square  to  square  with  tiger  leaps 

panted  the  lustful  fire, 
The  air  to  leeward  shuddered  with  the 

gasps  of  its  desire ; 
And  church  and  palace,  which  even  now 

stood  whelmed  but  to  the  knee, 
Lift  their  black  roofs  like  breakers  lone 

amid  the  whirling  sea. 

Up  in  his  tower  old  Herman  sat  and 
watched  with  quiet  look  ; 

His  soul  had  trusted  God  too  long  to  be 
at  last  forsook  ; 

He  could  not  fear,  for  surely  God  a  path- 
way would  unfold 

Through  this  red  sea  for  faithful  hearts, 
as  once  he  did  of  old. 


THE  SOWER.  —  HUNGER  AND  COLD. 


61 


But  scarcely  can  he  cross  himself,  or  on 

his  good  saint  call, 
Before  the  sacrilegious  flood  o'erleaped 

the  churchyard  wall ; 
And,  ere  a  pater  half  was  said,  mid  smoke 

and  crackling  glare, 
His  island  tower  scarce  juts  its  head 

above  the  wide  despair. 

Upon  the  peril's  desperate  peak  his  heart 
stood  up  sublime  ; 

His  first  thought  was  for  God  above,  his 
next  was  for  his  chime  ; 

"  Sing  now  and  make  your  voices  heard 
in  hymns  of  praise,"  cried  he, 

"As  did  the  Israelites  of  old,  safe  walk- 
ing through  the  sea  ! 

"  Through  this  red  sea  our  God  hath 

made  the  pathway  safe  to  shore  ; 
Our  promised  land  stands  full  in  sight ; 

shout  now  as  ne'er  before  ! " 
And  as  the  tower  came  crushing  down, 

the  bells,  in  clear  accord, 
Pealed  forth  the  grand  old  German 

hymn,  —  "All  good  souls,  praise 

the  Lord  ! " 

THE  SOWER. 

I  saw  a  Sower  walking  slow 
Across  the  earth,  from  east  to  west ; 
His  hair  was  white  as  mountain  snow, 
His  head  drooped  forward  on  his  breast. 

With  shrivelled  hands  he  flung  his  seed, 
Nor  ever  turned  to  look  behind  ; 
Of  sight  or  sound  he  took  no  heed  ; 
It  seemed  he  was  both  deaf  and  blind. 

His  dim  face  showed  no  soul  beneath, 
Yet  in  my  heart  I  felt  a  stir,  , 
As  if  I  looked  upon  the  sheath 
That  once  had  clasped  Excalibur. 

I  heard,  as  still  the  seed  he  cast, 
How,  crooning  to  himself,  he  sung, 
"  I  sow  again  the  holy  Past, 
The  happy  days  when  I  was  young. 

"Then  all  was  wheat  without  a  tare, 
Then  all  was  righteous,  fair,  and  true  ; 
And  I  am  he  whose  thoughtful  care 
Shall  plant  the  Old  World  in  the  New. 

"The  fruitful  germs  I  scatter  free, 
With  busy  hand,  while  all  men  sleep ; 


In  Europe  now,  from  sea  to  sea, 
The  nations  bless  me  as  they  reap." 

Then  I  looked  back  along  his  path, 
And  heard  the  clash  of  steel  on  steel, 
Where  man  faced  man,  in  deadly  wrath, 
While  clanged  the  tocsin's  hurrying  peal. 

The  sky  with  burning  towns  flared  red, 
Nearer  the  noise  of  fighting  rolled, 
And  brothers'  blood,  by  brothers  shed, 
Crept  curdling  over  pavements  cold. 

Then  marked  I  how  each  germ  of  truth 
Which  through  the  dotard's  fingers  ran 
Was  mated  with  a  dragon's  tooth 
Whence  there  sprang  up  an  armed  man. 

I  shouted,  but  he  could  not  hear  ; 
Made  signs,  but  these  he  could  not  see  ; 
And  still,  without  a  doubt  or  fear, 
Broadcast  he  scattered  anarchy. 

Long  to  my  straining  ears  the  blast 
Brought  faintly  back  the  words  he 
sung  : 

*  *  I  sow  again  the  holy  Past, 

The  happy  days  when  I  was  young." 


HUNGER  AND  COLD. 

Sisters  two,  all  praise  to  you, 
With  your  faces  pinched  and  blue  ; 
To  the  poor  man  you  've  been  true 

From  of  old  : 
You  can  speak  the  keenest  word, 
You  are  sure  of  being  heard, 
From  the  point  you  're  never  stirred, 

Hunger  and  Cold ! 

Let  sleek  statesmen  temporize  ; 
Palsied  are  their  shifts  and  lies 
When  they  meet  your  bloodshot  eyes, 

Grim  and  bold  ; 
Policy  you  set  at  naught, 
In  their  traps  you  '11  not  be  caught, 
You  're  too  honest  to  be  bought, 

Hunger  and  Cold  ! 

Bolt  and  bar  the  palace  door  ; 
While  the  mass  of  men  are  poor, 
Naked  truth  grows  more  and  more 

Uncontrolled  ; 
You  had  never  yet,  I  guess, 
Any  praise  for  bashfulness, 
You  can  visit  sans  court-dress, 

Hunger  and  Cold  ! 


02 


MISCELLANEOUS  POEMS. 


"While  the  music  fell  and  rose, 
And  the  dance  reeled  to  its  close, 
Where  her  round  of  costly  woes 

Fashion  strolled, 
I  beheld  with  shuddering  fear 
"Wolves'  eyes  through  the  windows  peer  ; 
Little  dream  they  you  are  near, 

Hunger  and  Cold  ! 

"When  the  toiler's  heart  you  clutch, 
Conscience  is  not  valued  much, 
He  recks  not  a  bloody  smutch 

On  his  gold : 
Everything  to  you  defers, 
You  are  potent  reason ers, 
At  your  whisper  Treason  stirs, 

Hunger  and  Cold  ! 

Eude  comparisons  you  draw, 
"Words  refuse  to  sate  your  maw, 
Your  gaunt  limbs  the  cobweb  law 

Cannot  hold  : 
You  're  not  clogged  with  foolish  pride, 
But  can  seize  a  right  denied  : 
Somehow  God  is  on  your  side, 

Hunger  and  Cold  ! 

You  respect  no  hoary  wrong 
More  for  having  triumphed  long  ; 
Its  past  victims,  haggard  throng, 

From  the  mould 
You  anbury  :  swords  and  spears 
"Weaker  are  than  poor  men's  tears, 
"Weaker  than  your  silent  years, 

Hunger  and  Cold  ! 

Let  them  guard  both  hall  and  bower ; 
Through  the  window  you  will  glower, 
Patient  till  your  reckoning  hour 

Shall  be  tolled  ; 
Cheeks  are  pale,  but  hands  are  red, 
Guiltless  blood  may  chance  be  shed, 
But  ye  must  and  will  be  fed, 

Hunger  and  Cold ! 

God  has  plans  man  must  not  spoil, 
Some  were  made  to  starve  and  toil, 
Some  to  share  the  wine  and  oil, 

"We  are  told: 
Devil's  theories  are  these, 
Stifling  hope  and  love  and  peace, 
Framed  your  hideous  lusts  to  please, 

Hunger  and  Cold  ! 

Scatter  ashes  on  thy  head, 
Tears  of  burning  sorrow  shed, 


Earth  !  and  be  by  Pity  led 

To  Love's  fold  ; 
Ere  they  block  the  very  door 
With  lean  corpses  of  the  poor, 
And  will  hush  for  naught  but  gore, 

Hunger  and  Cold  ! 

1844 


THE  LANDLORD. 

What  boot  your  houses  and  your  lands? 

In  spite  of  close-drawn  deed  and  fence, 
Like  water,  'twixt  your  cheated  hands, 
They  slip  into  the  graveyard's  sands, 

And  mock  your  ownership's  pretence. 

How  shall  you  speak  to  urge  your  right, 
Choked  with  that  soil  for  which  vou 
lust? 

The  bit  of  clay,  for  whose  delight 
You  grasp,  is  mortgaged,  too  ;  Death 
might 

Foreclose  this  very  day  in  dust. 

Fence  as  you  please,  this  plain  poor 
man, 

"Whose  only  fields  are  in  his  wit, 
"Who  shapes  the  world,  as  best  he  can, 
According  to  God's  higher  plan, 

Owns  you,  and  fences  as  is  fit. 

Though  yours  the  rents,  his  incomes 
wax 

By  right  of  eminent  domain  ; 
From  factory  tall  to  woodman's  axe, 
All  things  on  earth  must  pay  their  tax, 

To  feed  his  hungry  heart  and  brain. 

He  takes  you  from  your  easy-chair, 
And  what  he  plans  that  vou  must 
do; 

You  sleep  in  down,  eat  dainty  fare,  — 
He  mounts  his  crazy  garret-stair 
And  starves,  the  landlord  over  you. 

Feeding  the  clods  your  idlesse  drains, 

You  make  more  green  six  feet  of  soil ; 
His  fruitful  word,  like  suns  and  rains, 
Partakes  the  seasons'  bounteous  pains, 
And  toils  to  lighten  human  toil. 

Your  lands;  with  force  or  cunning  got, 
Shrink  to  the  measure  of  the  grave ; 
But  Death  himself  abridges  not 
The  tenures  of  almighty  thought, 
The  titles  of  the  wise  and  brave. 


TO  A  PINE-TREE.  —  SI  DESCENDERO  IN  INFERNUM,  ADES.  63 


TO  A  PINE-TREE. 

Far  up  on  Katahdin  thou  towerest, 
Purple-blue  with  the  distance  and 
vast ; 

Like  a  cloud  o'er  the  lowlands  thou 
lowerest, 

That  hangs  poised  on  a  lull  in  the 
blast, 

To  its  fall  leaning  awful. 

In  the  storm,  like  a  prophet  o'ermad- 
dened, 

Thou  singest  and  tossest  thy  branches ; 
Thy  heart  with  the  terror  is  gladdened, 
Thou  forebodest  the  dread  avalanches, 
When  whole  mountains  swoop  vale- 
ward. 

In  the  calm  thou  o'erstretchest  the  val- 
leys 

With  thine  arms,  as  if  blessings  im- 
ploring, 

Like  an  old  king  led  forth  from  his  pal- 
ace, 

When  his  people  to  battle  are  pouring 
From  the  city  beneath  him. 

To  the  lumberer  asleep  'neath  thy  gloom- 
ing 

Thou  dost  sing  of  wild  billows  in  mo- 
tion, 

Till  he  longs  to  be  swung  mid  their  boom- 
ing 

In  the  tents  of  the  Arabs  of  ocean, 
Whose  finned  isles  are  their  cattle. 

For  the  gale  snatches  thee  for  his  lyre, 
With  mad  hand  crashing  melody 
frantic, 

While  he  pours  forth  his  mighty  de- 
sire 

To  leap  down  on  the  eager  Atlantic, 
Whose  arms  stretch  to  his  play- 
mate. 

The  wild  storm  makes  his  lair  in  thy 
branches, 

Preying  thence  on  the  continent  un- 
der ; 

Like  a  lion,    crouched  close  on  his 
haunches, 
There  awaiteth  his  leap  the  fierce 
thunder, 
Growling  low  with  impatience. 


Spite  of  winter,  thou  keep'st  thy  green 
glory* 

Lusty  father  of  Titans  past  number ! 
The  snow-Hakes  alone  make  thee  hoary, 
Nestling  close  to  thy  branches  in 
slumber, 
And  thee  mantling  with  silence. 

Thou  alone  know'st   the  splendor  of 
winter, 

Mid  thy  snow-silvered,  hushed  pre- 
cipices, 

Hearing  crags  of  green  ice  groan  and 
splinter, 

And  then  plunge  down  the  muffled 
abysses 
In  the  quiet  of  midnight. 

Thou  alone  know'st  the  glory  of  summer, 
Gazing  down  on  thy  broad  seas  of 
forest, 

On  thy  subjects  that  send  a  proud  mur- 
mur 

Up  to  thee,  to  their  sachem,  who  tow- 
erest 

From  thy  bleak  throne  to  heaven. 


SI  DESCENDERO  IN  INFERNUM,  ADES. 

0,  wandering  dim  on  the  extremest 
edge 

Of  God's  bright  providence,  whose 
spirits  sigh 
Drearily  in  you,  like  the  winter  sedge 
That  shivers  o'er  the  dead  pool  stiff 
and  dry, 

A  thin,  sad  voice,  when  the  bold  wind 
roars  by 

From  the  clear  North  of  Duty,  — 
Still  by  cracked  arch  and  broken  shaft  I 
trace 

That  here  was  once  a  shrine  and  holy 
place 

Of  the  supernal  Beauty, — 
A  child's  play-altar  reared  of  stones 
and  moss, 

With  wilted  flowers  for  offering  laid 
across, 

Mute  recognition  of  the  all-ruling  Grace. 

How  far  are  ye  from  the  innocent,  from 
those 

Whose  hearts  are  as  a  little  lane  serene, 
Smooth-heaped  from  wall  to  wall  with 
unbroke  snows, 


64 


MISCELLANEOUS  POEMS. 


Or  in  the  summer  blithe  with  lamb- 
cropped  green, 
Save  the   one  track,  where  naught 
more  rude  is  seen 
Than  the  plump  wain  at  even 
Bringing  home  four  months"  sunshine 

bound  in  sheaves  !  — 
How  far  are  ye  from  those !  yet  who 
believes 
That  ye  can  shut  out  heaven  ? 
Your  souls  partake  its  influence,  not 
in  vain 

Nor  all  unconscious,  as  that  silent  lane 
Its  drift  of  noiseless  apple-blooms  re- 
ceives. 

Looking  within  myself,  I  note  how  thin 
A  plank  of  station,  chance,  or  pros- 
perous fate, 
Doth  fence  me  from  the  clutching  waves 
of  sin ;  — 

In  my  own  heart  I  find  the  worst 

man's  mate, 
And  see  not  dimly  the  smooth-hinged 

gate 

That  opes  to  those  abysses 
"Where  ye  grope  darkly, — ye  who  never 
knew 

On  your  young  hearts  love's  consecrating 
dew, 

Or  felt  a  mother's  kisses, 
Or  home's  restraining  tendrils  round 

you  curled  ; 
Ah,  side  by  side  with  heart' s-ease  in 
this  world 
The  fatal  nightshade  grows  and  bitter  rue  ! 

One  band  ye  cannot  break,  —  the  force 
that  clips 

And  grasps  your  circles  to  the  central 
light; 

\ours  is  the  prodigal  comet's  long  el- 
lipse, 

Self-exiled  to  the  farthest  verge  of 
night ; 

Yet  strives  with  you  no  less  that  in- 
ward might 
No  sin  hath  e'er  imbruted ; 
The  god  in  you  the  creed-dimmed  eye 
eludes ; 

The  Law  brooks  not  to  have  its  solitudes 
By  bigot  feet  polluted  ;  — 
Yet  they  who  watch  your  God-com- 
pelled return 
May  see  your  happy  perihelion  burn 
"Where   the   calm   sun   his  unfledged 
planets  broods. 


TO  THE  PAST. 

Wondrous  and  awful  are  thy  silent 
halls, 

0  kingdom  of  the  past ! 
There  lie  the  bygone  ages  in  their  palls, 
Guarded  by  shadows  vast ; 
There  all  is  hushed  and  breathless, 
Save  when  some  image  of  old  error  falls 
Earth  worshipped  once  as  deathless. 

There  sits  drear  Egypt,  mid  beleaguer- 
ing sands, 
Hall'  woman  and  half  beast, 
The  burnt-out  torch  within  her  moul- 
dering hands 
That  once  lit  all  the  East ; 
A  dotard  bleared  and  hoary, 
There  Asser  crouches  o'er  the  blackened 
brands 

Of  Asia's  long-quenched  glory. 

Still  as  a  city  buried  'neath  the  sea 
Thy  courts  and  temples  stand ; 
Idle  as  forms  on  wind-waved  tapestry 
Of  saints  and  heroes  grand, 
Thy  phantasms  grope  and  shiver, 
Or  watch  the  loose  shores  crumbling  si- 
lently 

Into  Time's  gnawing  river. 

Titanic  shapes  with  faces  blank  and  dun, 

Of  their  old  godhead  lorn, 
Gaze  on  the  embers  of  the  sunken  sun, 
Which  they  misdeem  for  morn ; 
And  yet  the  eternal  sorrow 
In  their  unmonarched  eyes  says  day  is 
done 

Without  the  hope  of  morrow. 

0  realm  of  silence  and  of  swart  eclipse, 
The  shapes  that  haunt  thy  gloom 
Make  signs  to  us  and  move  their  with- 
ered lips 
Across  the  gulf  of  doom ; 
Yet  all  their  sound  and  motion 
Bring  no  more  freight  to  us  than  wrraiths 
of  ships 
On  the  mirage's  ocean. 

And  if  sometimes  a  moaning  wandereth 

From  out  thy  desolate  halls, 
If  some  grim  shadow  of  thy  living  death 
Across  our  sunshine  falls 
And  scares  the  world  to  error, 
The  eternal  life  sends  forth  melodious 
bre.'ith 

To  chase  the  misty  terror. 


TO  THE  FUTURE.  65 


Thy  mighty  clamors,  wars,  and  world- 
noised  deeds 
Are  silent  now  in  dust, 

Gone  like  a  tremble  of  the  huddling 
reeds 

Beneath  some  sudden  gust ; 
Thy  forms  and  creeds  have  vanished, 
Tossed  out  to  wither  like  unsightly  weeds 
From  the  world's  garden  banished. 

Whatever  of  true  life  there  was  in  thee 

Leaps  in  our  age's  veins ; 
Wield  still  thy  bent  and  wrinkled  em- 
pery, 

And  shake  thine  idle  chains ;  — 
To  thee  thy  dross  is  clinging, 
For  us  thy  martyrs  die,  thy  prophets  see, 
Thy  poets  still  are  singing. 

Here,  mid  the  bleak  waves  of  our  strife 

and  care, 
Float  the  green  Fortunate  Isles 
Where  all  thy  hero-spirits  dwell,  and 

share 

Our  martyrdoms  and  toils ; 
The  present  moves  attended 
With  all  of  brave  and  excellent  and  fair 
That  made  the  old  time  splendid. 


TO  THE  FUTURE. 

0  Land  of  Promise !  from  what  Pisgah's 
height 

Can  I  behold  thy  stretch  of  peaceful 
bowers, 

Thy  golden  harvests  flowing  out  of  sight, 
Thy  nestled  homes  and  sun-illumined 
towers  ? 

Gazing  upon  the  sunset's  high-heaped 
gold, 

Its  crags  of  opal  and  of  chrysolite, 
Its  deeps  on  deeps  of  glory,  that  un- 
fold 

Still  brightening  abysses, 
And  blazing  precipices, 
Whence  but  a  scanty  leap  it  seems  to 
heaven, 
Sometimes  a  glimpse  is  given 
Of  thy  more  gorgeous  realm,  thy  more 
unstinted  blisses. 

0  Land  of  Quiet !  to  thy  shore  the  surf 
Of  the  perturbed  Present  rolls  and 
sleeps ; 

Our  storms  breathe  soft  as  June  upon 
thy  turf 

5 


And  lure  out  blossoms  ;  to  thy  bosom 
leaps, 

As  to  a  mother's,  the  o'erwearied  heart, 
Hearing  far  off  and  dim  the  toiling 
mart, 

The  hurrying  feet,  the  curses  without 
number, 

And,  circled  with  the  glow  Elysian 
Of  thine  exulting  vision, 
Out  of  its  very  cares  wooes  charms  for 
peace  and  slumber. 

To  thee  the  earth  lifts  up  her  fettered 
hands 

And  cries  for  vengeance  ;  with  a  pity- 
ing smile 

Thou  blessest  her,  and  she  forgets  her 
bands, 

And  her  old  woe-worn  face  a  little 
while 

Grows  young  and  noble  ;  unto  thee  the 
Oppressor 
Looks,  and  is  dumb  with  awe  ; 
The  eternal  law, 
Which  makes  the  crime  its  own  blind- 
fold redresser, 
Shadows  his  heart  with  perilous  fore- 
boding, 

And  he  can  see  the  grim-eyed  Doom 
From  out  the  trembling  gloom 
Its  silent-footed  steeds  towards  his  pal- 
ace goading. 

What  promises  hast  thou  for  Poets' 

eyes, 

Aweary  of  the  turmoil  and  the  wrong ! 
To  all  their  hopes  what  overjoyed  re- 
plies ! 

What  undreamed  ecstasies  for  bliss- 
ful song  ! 

Thy  happy  plains  no  war-trump's  brawl- 
ing clangor 
Disturbs,  and  fools  the  poor  to  hate 
the  poor ; 

The  humble  glares  not  on  the  high  with 
anger ; 

Love  leaves  no  grudge  at  less,  no  greed 
for  more  ; 

In  vain  strives  Self  the  godlike  sense  to 
smother ; 

From  the  soul's  deeps 

It  throbs  and  leaps  ; 
The  noble  'neath  foul  rags  beholds  his 

long-lost  brother. 

To  thee  the  Martyr  looketh,  and  his 
fires 


66 


MISCELLANEOUS  POEMS. 


Unlock  their  fangs  and  leave  his 

spirit  free  ; 
To  thee  the  Poet  mid  his  toil  aspires, 
And  grief  and  hunger  climb  about  his 

knee, 

Welcome  as  children  ;  thou  upholdest 
The  lone   Inventor  by  his  demon 
haunted  ; 

The  Prophet  cries  to  thee  when  hearts 

are  coldest, 
And  gazing  o'er  the  midnight's 

bleak  abyss, 
Sees  the  drowsed  soul  awaken  at 

thy  kiss, 

#  And  stretch  its  happy  arms  and  leap  up 
disenchanted. 

Thou  bringest  vengeance,  but  so  loving- 
kindly 

The  guilty  thinks  it  pity  ;  taught  by 
thee, 

Fierce  tyrants  drop  the  scourges  where- 
with blindly 
Their  own  souls  they  were  scarring ; 
conquerors  see 

With  horror  in  their  hands  the  accursed 
spear 

That  tore  the  meek  One's  side  on 
Calvary, 

And  from  their  trophies  shrink  with 
ghastly  fear  ; 
Thou,  too,  art  the  Forgiver, 
The  beauty  of  man's  soul  to  man  re- 
vealing ; 
The  arrows  from  thy  quiver 
Pierce  Error's  guilty  heart,  but  only 
pierce  for  healing. 

0,    whither,    whither,  glory-winged 
dreams, 

From  out  Life's  sweat  and  turmoil 

would  ye  bear  me  ? 
Shut,  gates  of  Fancy,  on  your  golden 

gleams,  — 
This  agony  of  hopeless  contrast  spare 

me ! 

Fade,  cheating  glow,  and  leave  me  to 
my  night  ! 
He  is  a  coward,  who  would  bor- 
row 

A  charm  against  the  present  sorrow 
From  the  vague  Future's  promise  of  de- 
light : 

As  life's  alarums  nearer  roll, 
The  ancestral  buckler  calls, 
Self-clanging  from  the  walls 

In  the  high  temple  of  the  soul ; 


Where  are  most  sorrows,  there  the  po- 
et's sphere  is, 
To  feed  the  soul  with  patience, 
To  heal  its  desolations 
With  words  of  unshorn  truth,  with  love 
that  never  wearies. 


HEBE. 

I  saw  the  twinkle  of  white  feet, 
I  saw  the  flash  of  robes  descending ; 

Before  her  ran  an  influence  fleet, 
That  bowed  my  heart  like  barley  bend- 
ing. 

As,  in  bare  fields,  the  searching  bees 
Pilot  to  blooms  beyond  our  finding, 

It  led  me  on,  by  sweet  degrees 
Joy's  simple  honey-cells  unbinding. 

Those  Graces  were  that  seemed  grim 
Fates ; 

With  nearer  love  the  sky  leaned  o'er 
me ; 

The  long-sought  Secret's  golden  gates 
On  musical  hinges  swung  before  me. 

I  saw  the  brimmed  bowl  in  her  grasp 
Thrilling  with  godhood  ;  like  a  lover 

I  sprang  the  profl'ered  life  to  clasp;  — 
The  beaker  fell ;  the  luck  was  over. 

The  Earth  has  drunk  the  vintage  up ; 
What  boots  it  patch  the  goblet's  splin- 
ters ? 

Can  Summer  fill  the  icy  cup, 
Whose  treacherous  crystal  is  but  Win- 
ter's ? 

0  spendthrift  haste  !  await  the  Gods ; 
Their  nectar  crowns  the  lips  of  Pa- 
tience ;  * 

Haste  scatters  on  unthankful  sods 
The  immortal  gift  in  vain  libations. 

Coy  Hebe  flies  from  those  that  woo, 
And  shuns  the  hands  would  seize  upon 
her; 

Follow  thy  life,  and  she  will  sue 
To  pour  for  thee  the  cup  of  honor. 

THE  SEARCH. 

I  went  to  seek  for  Christ, 
And  Nature  seemed  so  fair 
That  first  the  woods  and  fields  my  youth 
enticed, 


THE  PRESENT  CRISIS. 


67 


And  I  was  sure  to  find  him  there : 
The  temple  I  forsook, 
And  to  the  solitude 
Allegiance  paid ;  but  Winter  came  and 
shook 

The  crown  and  purple  from  my 
wood ; 

His  snows,  like  desert  sands,  with  scorn- 
ful drift, 

Besieged  the  columned  aisle  and  pal- 
ace-gate ; 

My  Thebes,  cut  deep  with  many  a  sol- 
emn rift, 

But  epitaphed  her  own  sepulchred 
state  : 

Then  I  remembered  whom  I  went  to  seek, 
And  blessed  blunt  Winter  for  his  coun- 
sel bleak. 

Back  to  the  world  I  turned, 
For  Christ,  I  said,  is  King ; 
So  the  cramped  alley  and  the  hut  I 
spurned, 
As  far  beneath  his  sojourning  : 
Mid  power  and  wealth  I  sought, 
But  found  no  trace  of  him, 
And  all  the  costly  offerings  I  had 
brought 

With  sudden  rust  and  mould  grew 
dim  : 

I  found  his  tomb,  indeed,  where,  by 
their  laws, 
All  must  on  stated  days  themselves 
imprison, 

Mocking  with  bread  a  dead  creed's  grin- 
ning jaws, 
Witless  how  long  the  life  had  thence 
arisen  ; 

Due  sacrifice  to  this  they  set  apart, 
Prizing  it  more  than  Christ's  own  living 
heart. 

So  from  my  feet  the  dust 
Of  the  proud  World  I  shook ; 
Then  came  dear  Love  and  shared  with 
me  his  crust, 
And  half  my  sorrow's  burden  took. 
After  the  World's  soft  bed, 
Its  rich  and  dainty  fare, 
Like  down  seemed  Love's  coarse  pillow 
to  my  head, 
His  cheap  food  seemed  as  manna 
rare  ; 

Fresh-trodden  prints  of  bare  and  bleed- 
ing feet, 

Turned  to  the  heedless  city  whence  I 
came, 


Hard  by  I  saw,  and  springs  of  worship 

sweet 

Gushed  from  my  cleft  heart  smitten 
by  the  same  ; 
Love  looked  me  in  the  face  and  spake  no 
words, 

But  straight  I  knew  those  footprints 
were  the  Lord's. 

I  followed  where  they  led, 
And  in  a  hovel  rude, 
With  naught  to  fence  the  weather  from 
his  head, 

The  King  I  sought  for  meekly  stood ; 
A  naked,  hungry  child 
Clung  round  his  gracious  knee, 
And  a  poor  hunted  slave  looked  up  and 
smiled 

To  bless  the  smile  that  set  him 
free ; 

New  miracles  I  saw  his  presence  do,  — 
No  more  I  knew  the  hovel  bare  and 
poor, 

The  gathered   chips  into  a  woodpile 
grew, 

The  broken  morsel  swelled  to  goodly 
store  ; 

I  knelt  and  wept  :  my  Christ  no  more 
I  seek, 

His  throne  is  with  the  outcast  and  the 
weak. 


THE  PRESENT  CRISIS. 

When  a  deed  is  done  for  Freedom, 
through  the  broad  earth's  aching 
breast 

Runs  a  thrill  of  joy  prophetic,  trembling 

on  from  east  to  west, 
And  the  slave,  where'er  he  cowers,  feels 

the  soul  within  him  climb 
To  the  awful  verge  of  manhood,  as  the 

energy  sublime 
Of  a  century  bursts  full-blossomed  on 

the  thorny  stem  of  Time. 

Through  the  walls  of  hut  and  palace 

shoots  the  instantaneous  throe, 
When  the  travail  of  the  Ages  wrings 

earth's  systems  to  and  fro  ; 
At  the  birth  of  each  new  Era,  with  a 

recognizing  start, 
Nation  wildly  looks  at  nation,  standing 

with  mute  lips  apart, 
And  glad  Truth's  yet  mightier  man-child 

leaps  beneath  the  Future's  heart. 


G8 


MISCELLANEOUS  POEMS. 


So  the  Evil's  triumph  sendeth,  with 

a  terror  and  a  chill, 
Under  continent  to  continent,  the  sense 

of  coining  ill, 
And  the  slave,  where'er  he  cowers,  feels 

his  sympathies  with  God 
In  hot  tear-drops  ebbing  earthward,  to 

be  drunk  up  by  the  sod, 
Till  a  corpse  crawls  round  unburied, 

delving  in  the  nobler  clod. 

For  mankind  are  one  in  spirit,  and  an 

instinct  bears  along, 
Kound  the  earth's  electric  circle,  the 

swift  Hash  of  right  or  wrong  ; 
Whether  conscious  or  unconscious,  yet 

Humanity's  vast  frame 
Through  its  ocean-sundered  fibres  feels 

the  gush  of  joy  or  shame  ;  — 
In  the  gain  or  loss  of  one  race  all  the 

rest  have  equal  claim. 

Once  to  every  man  and  nation  comes  the 

moment  to  decide, 
In  the  strife  of  Truth  with  Falsehood, 

for  the  good  or  evil  side  ; 
Some  great  cause,  God's  new  Messiah, 

offering  each  the  bloom  or  blight, 
Parts  the  goats  upon  the  left  hand,  and 

the  sheep  upon  the  right, 
And  the  choice  goes  by  forever  'twixt 

that  darkness  and  that  light. 

Hast  thou  chosen,  0  my  people,  on 

whose  party  thou  shalt  stand, 
Ere  the  Doom  from  its  worn  sandals 

shakes  the  dust  against  our  land  ? 
Though  the  cause  of  Evil  prosper,  yet 

't  is  Truth  alone  is  strong, 
And,  albeit  she  wander  outcast  now,  I 

see  around  her  throng 
Troops  of  beautiful,  tall  angels,  to  en- 

shield  her  from  all  wrong. 

Backward  look  across  the  ages  and  the 

beacon -moments  see, 
That,  like  peaks  of  some  sunk  continent, 

jut  through  Oblivion's  sea  ; 
Not  an  ear  in  court  or  market  for  the 

low  foreboding  cry 
Of  those  Crises,  God's  stern  winnowers, 

from  whose  feet  earth's  chaff  must 

fly; 

Never  shows  the  choice  momentous  till 
the  judgment  hath  passed  by. 

Careless  seems  the  great  Avenger ;  his- 
tory's pages  but  record 


One  death-grapple  in  the  darkness  'twixt 
old  systems  and  the  Word  ; 

Truth  forever  on  the  scaffold,  Wrong 
forever  on  the  throne,  — 

Yet  that  scaffold  sways  the  future,  and, 
behind  the  dim  unknown, 

Standeth  God  within  the  shadow,  keep- 
ing watch  above  his  own. 

We  see  dimly  in  the  Present  what  is 

small  and  what  is  great, 
Slow  of  faith  how  weak  an  arm  may 

turn  the  iron  helm  of  fate, 
But  the  soul  is  still  oracular  ;  amid  the 

market's  din, 
List  the  ominous  stern  whisper  from  the 

Delphic  cave  within,  — 
"They  enslave  their  children's  children 

who  make  compromise  with  sin. "  *J 

Slavery,  the  earth-born  Cyclops,  fellest 
of  the  giant  brood, 

Sons  of  brutish  Force  and  Darkness,  who 
have  drenched  the  earth  with  blood, 

Famished  in  his  self-made  desert,  blind- 
ed by  our  purer  day, 

Gropes  in  yet  unblasted  regions  for  his 
miserable  prey ;  — 

Shall  we  guide  his  gory  fingers  where 
our  helpless  children  play  ? 

Then  to  side  with  Truth  is  noble  when 

we  share  her  wretched  crust, 
Ere  her  cause  bring  fame  and  profit,  and 

't  is  prosperous  to  be  just ; 
Then  it  is  the  brave  man  chooses,  while 

the  coward  stands  aside, 
Doubting  in  his  abject  spirit,  till  his 

Lord  is  crucified, 
And  the  multitude  make  virtue  of  the 

faith  they  had  denied. 

Count  me  o'er  earth's  chosen  heroes ,  — 

they  wrere  souls  that  stood  alone, 
While  the  men  they  agonized  for  hurled 

the  contumelious  stone, 
Stood  serene,  and  down  the  future  saw 

the  golden  beam  incline 
To  the  side  of  perfect  justice,  mastered 

by  their  faith  divine, 
By  one  man's  plain  truth  to  manhood 

and  to  God's  supreme  design. 

By  the  light  of  burning  heretics  Christ's 

bleeding  feet  I  track, 
Toiling  up  new  Calvaries  ever  with  the 

cross  that  turns  not  back, 


AN  INDIAN-SUMMER  REVERIE. 


69 


And  these  mounts  of  anguish  number 
how  each  generation  learned 

One  new  word  of  that  grand  Credo  which 
in  prophet-hearts  hath  burned 

Since  the  first  man  stood  God- conquered 
with  his  face  to  heaven  upturned. 

For  Humanity  sweeps  onward  :  where 

to-day  the  martyr  stands, 
On  the  morrow  crouches  Judas  with  the 

silver  in  his  hands  ; 
Far  in  front  the  cross  stands  ready  and 

the  crackling  fagots  burn, 
While  the  hooting  mob  of  yesterday  in 

silent  awe  return 
To  glean  up  the  scattered  ashes  into 

History's  golden  urn. 

'T  is  as  easy  to  be  heroes  as  to  sit  the  idle 
slaves 

Of  a  legendary  virtue  carved  upon  our 
fathers'  graves, 

Worshippers  of  light  ancestral  make  the 
present  light  a  crime ;  — 

Was  the  Mayflower  launched  by  cow- 
ards, steered  by  men  behind  their 
time  ? 

Turn  those  tracks  toward  Past  or  Fu- 
ture, that  make  Plymouth  Rock 
sublime  ? 

They  were  men  of  present  valor,  stalwart 

old  iconoclasts, 
Unconvinced  by  axe  or  gibbet  that  all 

virtue  was  the  Past's  ; 
But  we  make  their  truth  our  falsehood, 

thinking  that  hath  made  us  free, 
Hoarding  it  in   mouldy  parchments, 

while  our  tender  spirits  flee 
The  rude  grasp  of  that  great  Impulse 

which  drove  them  across  the  sea. 

They  have  rights  who  dare  maintain 

them  ;  we  are  traitors  to  our  sires, 
Smothering  in  their  holy  ashes  Freedom's 

new-lit  altar- fires  ; 
Shall  we  make  their  creed  our  jailer  ? 

Shall  we,  in  our  haste  to  slay, 
From  the  tombs  of  the  old  prophets  steal 

the  funeral  lamps  away 
To  light  up  the  martyr-fagots  round  the 

prophets  of  to-day  ? 

New  occasions  teach  new  duties  ;  Time 
makes  ancient  good  uncouth  ; 

They  must  upward  still,  and  onward, 
who  would  keep  abreast  of  Truth  ; 


Lo,  before  us  gleam  her  camp-fires !  we 
ourselves  must  Pilgrims  be, 

Launch  our  Mayflower,  and  steer  boldly 
through  the  desperate  winter  sea, 

Nor  attempt  the  Future's  portal  with 
the  Past's  blood-rusted  key. 
December,  1845. 


AN  INDIAN-SUMMER  REVERIE. 

What  visionary  tints  the  year  puts 
on, 

When  falling  leaves  falter  through 
motionless  air 
Or  numbly  cling  and  shiver  to  be 
gone  ! 

How  shimmer  the  low  flats  and  pas- 
tures bare, 
As  with  her  nectar  Hebe  Autumn  fills 
The  bowl  between  me  and  those  dis- 
tant hills, 

And  smiles  and  shakes  abroad  her  misty, 
tremulous  hair ! 

No  more  the  landscape  holds  its 
wealth  apart, 
Making  me  poorer  in  my  poverty, 
But  mingles  with  my  senses  and  my 
heart  ; 

My  own  projected  spirit  seems  to  me 
In  her  own  reverie  the  world  to 
steep  ; 

'T  is  she  that  waves  to  sympathetic 
sleep, 

Moving,  as  she  is  moved,  each  field  and 
hill  and  tree. 

How  fuse  and  mix,  with  what  un- 
felt  degrees, 
Clasped  by  the  faint  horizon's  languid 
arms, 

Each  into  each,  the  hazy  distances ! 
The  softened  season  all  the  landscape 
charms  ; 

Those  hills,  my  native  village  that 
embay, 

In  waves  of  dreamier  purple  roll 
away, 

And  floating  in  mirage  seem  all  the 
glimmering  farms. 

Far  distant  sounds  the  hidden  chick- 
adee 

Close  at  my  side  ;  far  distant  sound 
the  leaves  ; 
The  fields  seem  fields  of  dream, 
where  Memory 


70 


MISCELLANEOUS  POEMS. 


Wanders  like  gleaning  Ruth  ;  and  as 
the  sheaves 
Of  wheat  and  barley  wavered  in  the 
eye 

Of  Boaz  as  the  maiden's  glow  went 
by, 

So  tremble  and  seem  remote  all  things 
the  sense  receives. 

The  cock's  shrill  trump  that  tells 
of  scattered  corn, 
Passed  breezily  on  by  all  his  flapping 
mates, 

Faint  and  more  faint,  from  barn  to 
barn  is  borne, 
Southward,  perhaps  to  far  Magellan's 
Straits  ; 

Dimly  I  catch  the  throb  of  distant 
flails ; 

Silently  overhead    the  hen-hawk 
sails, 

With  watchful,  measuring  eye,  and  for 
his  quarry  waits. 

The  sobered  robin,  hunger- silent 
now, 

Seeks  cedar-berries  blue,  his  autumn 
cheer ; 

The  squirrel,  on  the  shingly  shag- 
bark's  bough, 
Now  saws,  now  lists  with  downward 
eye  and  ear, 

Then  drops  his  nut,  and,  with  a 
chipping  bound, 

Whisks  to   his  wdnding  fastness 
underground  ; 
The  clouds  like  swans  drift  down  the 
streaming  atmosphere. 

O'er  yon  bare  knoll  the  pointed 
cedar  shadows 
Drowse  on  the  crisp,  gray  moss ;  the 
ploughman's  call 
Creeps  faint  as  smoke  from  black, 
fresh-furrowed  meadows ; 
The  single  crow  a  single  caw  lets  fall ; 
And  all  around  me  every  bush  and 
tree 

Says  Autumn  's  here,  and  Winter 
soon  will  be, 
Who  snows  his  soft,  white  sleep  and 
silence  over  all. 

The  birch,  most  shy  and  ladylike 
of  trees, 

Her  poverty,  as  best  she  may,  re- 
trieves, 


And  hints  at  her  foregone  gentili- 
ties 

With  some  saved  relics  of  her  wealth 
of  leaves ; 
The  swamp-oak,  with  his  royal  pur- 
ple on, 

Glares  red  as  blood  across  the  sink- 
ing sun, 

As  one  who  proudlier  to  a  falling  for- 
tune cleaves. 

He  looks  a  sachem,  in  red  blanket 
wrapt, 

Who,  mid  some  council  of  the  sad- 
garbed  whites, 
Erect  and  stern,  in  his  own  memo- 
ries lapt, 

With  distant  eye  broods  over  other 
sights, 

Sees  the  hushed  wood  the  city's  flare 
replace, 

The  wounded  turf  heal  o'er  the  rail- 
way's trace, 
And  roams  the  savage  Past  of  his  un- 
dwindled  rights. 

The  red-oak,  softer-grained,  yields 
all  for  lost, 
And,  with  his  crumpled  foliage  stiff 
and  dry, 

After  the  first  betrayal  of  the  frost, 
Rebuffs  the  kiss  of  the  relenting  sky  ; 
The  chestnuts,  lavish  of  their  long- 
hid  gold, 

To  the  faint  Summer,  beggared  now 
and  old, 

Pour  back  the  sunshine  hoarded  'neath 
her  favoring  eye. 

The  ash  her  purple  drops  forgiv- 
ingly 

And  sadly,  breaking  not  the  general 
hush  ; 

The  maple-swamps  glow  like  a  sun- 
set sea, 

Each  leaf  a  ripple  with  its  separate 
flush ; 

All  round  the  wood's  edge  creeps 

the  skirting  blaze 
Of  bushes  low,  as  when,  on  cloudy 

days, 

Ere  the  rain  falls,  the  cautious  farmer 
burns  his  brush. 

O'er  yon  low  wall,  which  guards 
one  unkempt  zone, 
Where  vines  and  weeds  and  scrub- 
oaks  intertwine 


AN  INDIAN-SUMMER  REVERIE. 


71 


Safe  from  the  plough,  whose  rough, 
discordant  stone 
Is  massed  to  one  soft  gray  by  lichens 
tine, 

The  tangled  blackberry,  crossed  and 

recrossed,  weaves 
A  prickly  network  of  ensanguined 

leaves  ; 

Hard  by,  with  coral  beads,  the  prim 
black-alders  shine. 

Pillaring  with  flame  this  crumbling 
boundary, 
Whose  loose  blocks  topple  'neath  the 
ploughboy's  foot, 

Who,  with  each  sense  shut  fast  ex- 
cept the  eye, 
Creeps  close  and  scares  the  jay  he 
hoped  to  shoot, 

The  woodbine  up  the  elm's  straight 
stem  aspires, 

Coiling  it,  harmless,  with  autumnal 
fires  ; 

In  the  ivy's  paler  blaze  the  martyr  oak 
stands  mute. 

Below,  the  Charles  —  a  stripe  of 
nether  sky, 
Now  hid  by  rounded  apple-trees  be- 
tween, 

Whose   gaps   the   misplaced  sail 
sweeps  bellying  by, 
Now  flickering  golden  through  a  wood- 
land screen, 
Then  spreading  out,  at  his  next 

turn  beyond, 
A  silver  circle  like  an  inland  pond  — 
Slips  seaward  silently  through  marshes 
purple  and  green. 

Dear  marshes  !  vain  to  him  the  gift 
of  sight 

Who  cannot  in  their  various  incomes 
share, 

From  every  season  drawn,  of  shade 
and  light, 
Who  sees  in  them  but  levels  brown 
and  bare ; 
Each  change  of  storm  or  sunshine 

scatters  free 
On  them  its  largess  of  variety, 
For  Nature  with  cheap  means  still  works 
her  wonders  rare. 

In  Spring  they  lie  one  broad  expanse 
of  green, 

O'er  which  the  light  winds  run  with 
glimmering  feet : 


Here,  yellower  stripes  track  out  the 
creek  unseen, 
There,  darker  growths   o'er  hidden 
ditches  meet ; 
And  purpler  stains  show  where  the 

blossoms  crowd, 
As  if  the  silent  shadow  of  a  cloud 
Hung  there  becalmed,  with  the  next 
breath  to  fleet. 

All  round,  upon  the  river's  slippery 
edge, 

Witching  to  deeper  calm  the  drowsy 
tide, 

Whispers  and  leans   the  breeze- 
entangling  sedge ; 
Through  emerald  glooms  the  lingering 
waters  slide, 
Or,  sometimes  wavering,  throw  back 
the  sun, 

And  the  stiff  banks  in  eddies  melt 
and  run 

Of  dimpling  light,  and  with  the  current 
seem  to  glide. 

In  Summer 't  is  a  blithesome  sight 
to  see, 

As,  step  by  step,  with  measured  swing, 
they  pass, 
The  wide-ranked  mowers  wading  to 
the  knee, 

Their  sharp  scythes  panting  through 
the  thick-set  grass ; 
Then,  stretched  beneath  a  rick's 

shade  in  a  ring, 
Their   nooning   take,   while  one 
begins  to  sing 
A  stave  that  droops  and  dies  'neath  the 
close  sky  of  brass. 

Meanwhile  that  devil-may-care,  the 
bobolink, 

Remembering  duty,  in  mid- quaver 
stops 

Just  ere  he  sweeps  o'er  rapture's 
tremulous  brink, 
And  'twixt  the  winrows  most  demurely 
drops, 

A  decorous  bird  of  business,  who 
provides 

For  his  brown  mate  and  fledglings 
six  besides, 
And  looks  from  right  to  left,  a  farmer 
mid  his  crops. 

Another  change  subdues  them  in 
the  Fall, 


72 


MISCELLANEOUS  POEMS. 


But  saddens  not ;  they  still  show  mer- 
rier tints, 
Though  sober  russet  seems  to  cover 
all; 

"When  the  first  sunshine  through  their 
dew-drops  glints, 
Look  how  the  yellow  clearness, 

streamed  across, 
Redeems  with  rarer  hues  the  season's 
loss, 

As  Dawn's  feet  there  had  touched  and 
left  their  rosy  prints. 

Or  come  when  sunset  gives  its  fresh- 
ened zest, 

Lean  o'er  the  bridge  and  let  the  ruddy 
thrill, 

"While  the  shorn  sun  swells  down 
the  hazy  west, 
Glow  opposite; — the  marshes  drink 
their  fill 

And  swoon  with  purple  veins,  then 

slowly  fade 
Through  pink  to  brown,  as  eastward 

moves  the  shade, 
Lengthening  with  stealthy  creep,  of  Si- 

mond's  darkening  hill. 

Later,  and  yet  ere  Winter  wholly 
shuts, 

Ere  through  the  first  dry  snow  the 
runner  grates, 
And  the  loath  cart-wheel  screams  in 
slippery  ruts, 
While  firmer  ice  the  eager  boy  awaits, 
Trying  each  buckle  and  strap  beside 
the  fire, 

And  until  bedtime  plays  with  his 
desire, 

Twenty  times  putting  on  and  off  his  new- 
bought  skates ; — 

Then,  every  morn,  the  river's  banks 
shine  bright 
With  smooth  plate-armor,  treacherous 
and  frail, 
By  the  frost's  clinking  hammers 
forged  at  night, 
'Gainst  which  the  lances  of  the  sun 
prevail, 

Giving  a  pretty  emblem  of  the 
day 

When  guiltier  arms  in  light  shall 
melt  away, 
And  states  shall  move  free-limbed,  loosed 
from  war's  cramping  mail. 


And  now  those  waterfalls  the  ebb- 
ing river 

Twice  every  day  creates  on  either 
side 

Tinkle,   as  through  their  fresh- 
sparred  grots  they  shiver 
In  grass-arched  channels  to  the  sun 
denied ; 

High  flaps  in  sparkling  blue  the  far- 
heard  crow, 

The  silvered  flats  gleam  frostily  be- 
low, 

Suddenly  drops  the  gull  and  breaks  the 
glassy  tide. 

But  crowned  in  turn  by  vying  sea- 
sons three, 
Their  winter  halo  hath  a  fuller  ring ; 

This  glory  seems  to  rest  immova- 
bly,- 

The  others  were  too  fleet  and  vanish- 
ing; 

When  the  hid  tide  is  at  its  highest 
flow, 

O'er  marsh  and  stream  one  breath- 
less trance  of  snow 
With  brooding  fulness  awes  and  hushes 
everything. 

The  sunshine  seems  blown  off  by 
the  bleak  wind, 
As  pale  as  formal  candles  lit  by  day ; 
Gropes  to  the  sea  the  river  dumb  and 
blind ; 

The  brown  ricks,  snow -thatched  by 
the  storm  in  play, 
Show  pearly  breakers  combing  o'er 
their  lee, 

White  crests  as  of  some  just  en- 
chanted sea, 
Checked  in  their  maddest  leap  and  hang- 
ing poised  midway. 

But  when  the  eastern  blow,  with 
rain  aslant, 
From  mid-sea's  prairies  green  and  roll- 
ing plains 
Drives  in  his  wallowing  herds  of  bil- 
lows gaunt, 
And  the  roused  Charles  remembers  in 
his  veins 

Old  Ocean's  blood  and  snaps  his 

gyves  of  frost, 
That  tyrannous  silence  on  the  shores 

is  tost 

In  dreary  wreck,  and  crumbling  desola- 
tion reigns. 


AN  INDIAN-SUMMER  KEVERIE. 


73 


Edgewise  or  flat,  in  Druid-like  de- 
vice, 

With  leaden  pools  between  or  gullies 
bare, 

The  blocks  lie  strewn,  a  bleak  Stone- 
henge  of  ice ; 
No  life,  no  sound,  to  break  the  grim 
despair, 

Save  sullen  plunge,  as  through  the 

sedges  stiff 
Down    crackles   riverward  some 

thaw-sapped  cliff, 
Or  when  the  close-wedged  fields  of  ice 

crunch  here  and  there. 

But  let  me  turn  from  fancy-pic- 
tured scenes 
To  that  whose  pastoral  calm  before  me 
lies : 

Here  nothing  harsh  or  rugged  inter- 
venes ; 

The  early  evening  with  her  misty  dyes 
Smooths  off  the  ravelled  edges  of 

the  nigh, 
Relieves  the  distant  with  her  cooler 

sky, 

And  tones  the  landscape  down,  and 
soothes  the  wearied  eyes. 

There  gleams  my  native  village,  dear 
to  me, 

Though  higher  change's  waves  each 
day  are  seen, 
Whelming  fields  famed  in  boyhood's 
history, 

Sanding  with  houses  the  diminished 
green  ; 

There,  in  red  brick,  which  soften- 
ing time  defies, 

Stand  square  and  stiff  the  Muses' 
factories ;  — 
How  with  my  life  knit  up  is  every  well- 
known  scene ! 

Flow  on,  dear  river  !  not  alone  you 
flow 

To  outward  sight,  and  through  your 
marshes  wind ; 
Fed  from  the  mystic  springs  of  long- 
ago, 

Your  twin  flows  silent  through  my 

world  of  mind : 
Grow  dim,  dear  marshes,  in  the 

evening's  gray  ! 
Before  my  inner  sight  ye  stretch 

away, 

And  will  forever,  though  these  fleshly 
eyes  grow  blind. 


Beyond  the  hillock's  house-bespot- 
ted  swell, 

Where  Gothic  chapels  house  the  horse 
and  chaise, 
Where  quiet  cits  in  Grecian  tem- 
ples dwell, 
Where  Coptic  tombs  resound  with 
prayer  and  praise, 
Where  dust  and  mud  the  equal 

year  divide, 
There  gentle  Allston  lived,  and 
wrought,  and  died, 
Transfiguring  street  and  shop  with  his 
illumined  gaze. 

Virgilium  vidi  tantum,  —  I  have 
seen 

But  as  a  boy,  who  looks  alike  on  all, 
That  misty  hair,  that  fine  Undine-like 
mien, 

Tremulous  as  down  to  feeling's  faintest 
call ;  — 

Ah,  dear  old  homestead  !  count  it  to 
thy  fame 
That  thither  many  times  the  Paint- 
er came ;  — 
One  elm  yet  bears  his  name,  a  feathery 
tree  and  tall. 

Swiftly  the  present  fades  in  mem- 
ory's glow,  — 
Our  only  sure  possession  is  the  past ; 
The    village   blacksmith   died  a 
month  ago, 
And  dim  to  me  the  forge's  roaring 
blast ; 

Soon  fire-new  medisevals  we  shall 
see 

Oust  the  black  smithy  from  its  chest- 
nut-tree, 

And  that  hewn  down,  perhaps,  the  bee- 
hive green  and  vast. 

How  many  times,  prouder  than 

king  on  throne, 
Loosed  from  the  village  school-dame's 

A's  and  B's, 
Panting  have  I  the  creaky  bellows 

blown, 

And  watched  the  pent  volcano's  red 
increase, 

Then  paused  to  see  the  ponderous 

sledge,  brought  down 
By  that  hard  arm  voluminous  and 

brown, 

From  the  white  iron  swarm  its  golden 
vanishing  bees. 


74 


MISCELLANEOUS  POEMS. 


Dear  native  town  !  whose  choking 

elms  each  year 
With  eddying  dust  before  their  time 

turn  gray, 
Pining  for  rain, —  to  me  thy  dust  is 

dear ; 

It  glorifies  the  eve  of  summer  day, 
And  when  the  westering  sun  half 

sunken  burns, 
The  mote-thick  air  to  deepest  orange 

turns, 

The  westward  horseman  rides  through 
clouds  of  gold  away, 

So  palpable,  I  've  seen  those  unshorn 
few, 

The  six  old  willows  at  the  causey's 
end 

(Such   trees    Paul    Potter  never 
dreamed  nor  drew), 
Through  this  dry  mist  their  checker- 
ing shadows  send, 

Striped,  here  and  there,  with  many 
a  long-drawn  thread, 

Where    streamed    through  leafy 
chinks  the  trembling  red, 
Past  which,  in   one  bright  trail,  the 
hangbird's  flashes  blend. 

Yes,  dearer  far  thy  dust  than  all 
that  e'er, 

Beneath  the  awarded  crown  of  victory, 
Gilded  the  blown  Olympic  chariot- 
eer; 

Though  lightly  prized  the  ribboned 
parchments  three, 
Yet  collegisse  juvat,  I  am  glad 
'"hat  here  y " 
I  had,— 

It  linked  another  tie,  dear  native  town, 
with  thee ! 

Nearer  art  thou  than  simply  native 
earth, 

My  dust  with  thine  concedes  a  deeper 
tie ; 

A  closer  claim  thy  soil  may  well  put 
forth, 

Something  of  kindred  more  than  sym- 
pathy ; 

For  in  thy  bounds  I  reverently  laid 
away 

That  blinding  anguish  of  forsaken 
clay, 

That  title  I  seemed  to  have  in  earth  and  , 
sea  and  sky, 


That  portion  of  my  life  more  choice 

to  me 

(Though  brief,  yet  in  itself  so  round 
and  whole) 
Than  all  the  imperfect  residue  can 
be  ;  — 

The  Artist  saw  his  statue  of  the  soul 
AVas  perfect;  so,  with  one  regretful 
stroke, 

The  earthen  model  into  fragments 
broke, 

And  without  her  the  impoverished  sea- 
sons roll. 


THE  GROWTH  OF  THE  LEGEND. 

A  FRAGMENT. 

A  legend  that  grew  in  the  forest's 
hush 

Slowly  as  tear-drops  gather  and  gush, 
When  a  word  some  poet  chanced  to 
say  _ 

Ages  ago,  in  his  careless  way, 
Brings  our  youth  back  to  us  out  of  its 
shroud 

Clearly  as  under  yon  thunder-cloud 
I  see  that  white  sea-gull.    It  grew  and 
grew, 

From  the  pine-trees  gathering  a  sombre 
hue, 

Till  it  seems  a  mere  murmur  out  of  the 
vast 

Norwegian  forests  of  the  past ; 
And  it  grew  itself  like  a  true  Northern 
pine, 

First  a  little  slender  line, 
Like  a  mermaid's  green  eyelash,  and  then 
anon 

A  stem  that  a  tower  might  rest  upon, 
Standing  spear-straight  in  the  waist- 
deep  moss, 
Its  bony  roots  clutching  around  and 
across, 

As  if  they  would  tear  up  earth's  heart 

in  their  grasp 
Ere  the  storm  should  uproot  them  or 

make  them  unclasp  ; 
Its  cloudy  boughs  singing,  as  suiteth  the 

pine, 

To  shrunk  snow-bearded  sea-kings  old 
songs  of  the  brine, 

Till  they  straightened  and  let  their 
staves  fall  to  the  floor, 

Hearing  waves  moan  again  on  the  per- 
ilous shore 


THE  GROWTH  OF  THE  LEGEND. 


75 


Of  Vinland,  perhaps,  while  their  prow 

groped  its  way 
'Twixt  the  frothed  gnashing  tusks  of 

some  ship-crunching  bay. 

So,  pine -like,  the  legend  grew,  strong- 
limbed  and  tall, 

As  the  Gypsy  child  grows  that  eats  crusts 
in  the  hall ; 

It  sucked  the  whole  strength  of  the 
earth  and  the  sky, 

Spring,  Summer,  Fall,  Winter,  all 
brought  it  supply ; 

'T  was  a  natural  growth,  and  stood  fear- 
lessly there, 

True  part  of  the  landscape  as  sea,  land, 
and  air ; 

For  it  grew  in  good  times,  ere  the  fash- 
ion it  was 

To  force  these  wild  births  of  the  woods 
under  glass, 

And  so,  if 't  is  told  as  it  should  be  told, 

Though  't  were  sung  under  Venice's 
moonlight  of  gold, 

You  would  hear  the  old  voice  of  its 
mother,  the  pine, 

Murmur  sealike  and  northern  through 
every  line, 

And  the  verses  should  grow,  self-sus- 
tained and  free, 

Round  the  vibrating  stem  of  the  melody, 

Like  the  lithe  moonlit  limbs  of  the 
parent  tree. 

Yes,  the  pine  is  the  mother  of  legends ; 
what  food 

For  their  grim  roots  is  left  when  the 

thousand-yeared  wood, 
The  dim-aisled  cathedral,  whose  tall 

arches  spring 
Light,  sinewy,  graceful,  firm-set  as  the 

wing 

From  Michael's  white  shoulder,  is  hewn 
and  defaced 

By  iconoclast  axes  in  desperate  waste, 

And  its  wrecks  seek  the  ocean  it  proph- 
esied long, 

Cassandra-like,  crooning  its  mystical 
song  ? 

Then  the  legends  go  with  them,  —  even 

yet  on  the  sea 
A  wild  virtue  is  left  in  the  touch  of  the 

tree, 

And  the  sailor's  night  -  watches  are 

thrilled  to  the  core 
With  the  lineal  offspring  of  Odin  and 

Thor. 


Yes,  wherever  the  pine-wood  has  never 
let  in, 

Since  the  day  of  creation,  the  light  and 
the  din 

Of  manifold  life,  but  has  safely  con- 
veyed 

From  the  midnight  primeval  its  armful 
of  shade, 

And  has  kept  the  weird  Past  with  its 
sagas  alive 

Mid  the  hum  and  the  stir  of  To-day's 
busy  hive, 

There  the  legend  takes  root  in  the  age- 
gathered  gloom, 

And  its  murmurous  boughs  for  their 
sagas  find  room. 

Where  Aroostook,  far-heard,  seems  to 
sob  as  he  goes 

Groping  down  to  the  sea  'neath  his 
mountainous  snows ; 

Where  the  lake's  frore  Sahara  of  never- 
tracked  white, 

When  the  crack  shoots  across  it,  com- 
plains to  the  night 

With  a  long,  lonely  moan,  that  leagues 
northward  is  lost, 

As  the  ice  shrinks  away  from  the  tread 
of  the  frost ; 

Where  the  lumberers  sit  by  the  log-fires 
that  throw 

Their  own  threatening  shadows  far  round 
o'er  the  snow, 

When  the  wolf  howls  aloof,  and  the 
wavering  glare 

Flashes  out  from  the  blackness  the  eyes 
of  the  bear, 

When  the  wood's  huge  recesses,  half- 
lighted,  supply 

A  canvas  where  Fancy  her  mad  brush 
may  try, 

Blotting  in  giant  Horrors  that  venture 
not  down 

Through  the  right-angled  streets  of  the 
brisk,  whitewashed  town, 

But  skulk  in  the  depths  of  the  measure- 
less wood 

Mid  the  Dark's  creeping  whispers  that 
curdle  the  blood, 

When  the  eye,  glanced  in  dread  o'er  the 
shoulder,  may  dream, 

Ere  it  shrinks  to  the  camp -fire's  compan- 
ioning gleam, 

That  it  saw  the  fierce  ghost  of  the  Red 
Man  crouch  back 

To  the  shroud  of  the  tree-trunk's  invin- 
cible black  ; — 


76 


MISCELLANEOUS  POEMS. 


There  the  old  shapes  crowd  thick  round 
the  pine-shadowed  camp, 

Which  shun  the  keen  gleam  of  the  schol- 
arly lamp, 

And  the  seed  of  the  legend  finds  true 
Norland  ground, 

While  the  border-tale 's  told  and  the 
canteen  Hits  round. 


A  CONTRAST. 

Thy  love  thou  sentest  oft  to  me, 
And  still  as  oft  I  thrust  it  back ; 

Thy  messengers  I  could  not  see 
In  those  who  everything  did  lack, 
The  poor,  the  outcast,  and  the  black. 

Pride  held  his  hand  before  mine  eyes. 
The  world  with  flattery  stulfed  mine 
ears ; 

I  looked  to  see  a  monarch's  guise, 
Nor  dreamed  thy  love  would  knock 

for  years, 
Poor,  naked,  fettered,  full  of  tears. 

Yet,  when  I  sent  my  love  to  thee, 
Thou  with  a  smile  didst  take  it  in, 

And  entertain'dst  it  royally, 

Though  grimed  with  earth,  with  hun- 
ger thin, 
And  leprous  with  the  taint  of  sin. 

Now  every  day  thy  love  I  meet, 
As  o'er  the  earth  it  wanders  wide, 

With  weary  step  and  bleeding  feet, 
Still  knocking  at  the  heart  of  pride 
And  offering  grace,  though  still  de- 
nied. 


EXTREME  UNCTION. 

Go!  leave  me,  Priest;  my  soul  would 

be 

Alone  with  the  consoler,  Death ; 
Far  sadder  eyes  than  thine  will  see 
This  crumbling  clay  yield  up  its 
breath ; 

These  shrivelled  hands  have  deeper  stains 

Than  holy  oil  can  cleanse  away, 
Hands  that  have  plucked  the  world's 
coarse  gains 
As  erst  they  plucked  the  flowers  of 
May. 

Call,  if  thou  canst,  to  these  gray  eyes 
Some  faith  from  youth's  traditions 
wrung ; 


This  fruitless  husk  which  dustward  dries 
Has  been  a  heart  once,  has  been  young ; 

On  this  bowed  head  the  awful  Past 
Once  laid  its  consecrating  hands ; 

The  Future  in  its  purpose  vast 

Paused,  waiting   my  supreme  com- 
mands. 

But  look !  whose  shadows  block  the 
door? 

Who  are  those  two  that  stand  aloof? 
See  !  on  my  hands  this  freshening  gore 

Writes  o'er  again  its  crimson  proof ! 
My  looked-for    death-bed  guests  are 
met; 

There  my  dead  Youth  doth  wring  its 
hands, 

And  there,  with  eyes  that  goad  me  yet, 
The  ghost  of  my  Ideal  stands ! 

God  bends  from  out  the  deep  and  says, 

"  I  gave  thee  the  great  gift  of  life  ; 
Wast  thou  not  called  in  many  ways  ? 

Are  not  my  earth  and  heaven  at  strife  ? 
I  gave  thee  of  my  seed  to  sow, 

Bringest  thou  me  my  hundred-fold  ? " 
Can  I  look  up  with  face  aglow, 

And  answer,  "Father,  here  is  gold"  ? 

I  have  been  innocent ;  God  knows 
When  first  this  wasted  life  began, 

Not  grape  with  grape  more  kindly  grows, 
Than  I  with  every  brother-man  : 

Now  here  1  gasp ;  what  lose  my  kind, 
When  this  fast  ebbing  breath  shall 
part  ? 

What  bands  of  love  and  service  bind 
This  being  to  the  world's  sad  heart  ? 

Christ  still  was  wandering  o'er  the  earth 
Without  a  place  to  lay  his  head ; 

He  found  free  welcome  at  my  hearth, 
He  shared  my  cup  and  broke  my 
bread  : 

Now,  when  I  hear  those  steps  sublime, 
That  bring  the  other  world  to  this, 

My  snake-turned  nature,  sunk  in  slime, 
Starts  sideway  with  defiant  hiss. 

Upon  the  hour  when  I  was  born, 
God  said,  "Another  man  shall  be," 

And  the  great  Maker  did  not  scorn 
Out  of  himself  to  fashion  me  ; 

He  sunned  me  with  his  ripening  looks, 
And  Heaven's  rich  instincts  in  me 
grew, 


THE 

As  effortless  as  woodland  nooks 

Send  violets  up  and  paint  them  blue. 

Yes,  I  who  now,  with  angry  tears, 
Am  exiled  back  to  brutish  clod, 
Have  borne  unquenched  for  fourscore 
years 

A  spark  of  the  eternal  God ; 
And  to  what  end  ?    How  yield  I  back 

The  trust  for  such  high  uses  given  ? 
Heaven's  light  hath  but  revealed  a  track 

Whereby  to  crawl  away  from  heaven. 

Men  think  it  is  an  awful  sight 

To  see  a  soul  just  set  adrift 
On  that  drear  voyage  from  whose  night 

The  ominous  shadows  never  lift ; 
But 't  is  more  awful  to  behold 

A  helpless  infant  newly  born, 
Whose  little  hands  unconscious  hold 

The  keys  of  darkness  and  of  morn. 

Mine  held  them  once  ;  I  flung  away 

Those  keys  that  might  have  open  set 
The  golden  sluices  of  the  day, 

But  clutch  the  keys  of  darkness  yet ; 
I  hear  the  reapers  singing  go 

Into  God's  harvest ;  I,  that  might 
With  them  have  chosen,  here  below 

Grope  shuddering  at  the  gates  of  night. 

0  glorious  Youth,  that  once  wast  mine ! 

0  high  Ideal !  all  in  vain 
Ye  enter  at  this  ruined  shrine 

Whence  worship  ne'er  shall  rise  again ; 
The  bat  and  owl  inhabit  here, 

The  snake  nests  in  the  altar-stone, 
The  sacred  vessels  moulder  near, 

The  image  of  the  God  is  gone. 


THE  OAK. 

What  gnarled  stretch,  what  depth  of 
shade,  is  his ! 
There  needs  no  crown  to  mark  the 
forest's  king  ; 
How  in  his  leaves  outshines  full  sum- 
mer's bliss ! 
Sun,  storm,  rain,  dew,  to  him  their 
tribute  bring, 
Which  he  with  such  benignant  royalty 
Accepts,  as  overpayeth  what  is  lent ; 
All  nature  seems  his  vassal  proud  to  be, 
And  cunning  only  for  his  ornament.  I 


OAK.  77 

How  towers  he,  too,  amid  the  billowed 
snows, 

An  unquelled  exile  from  the  summer's 
throne, 

Whose  plain,  uncinctured  front  more 
kingly  shows, 
Now  that  the  obscuring  courtier  leaves 
are  flown. 

His  boughs  make  music  of  the  winter 
air, 

Jewelled  with  sleet,  like  some  cathe- 
dral front 

Where  clinging  snow-flakes  with  quaint 
art  repair 

The  dints  and  furrows  of  time's  en- 
vious brunt. 

How  doth  his  patient  strength  the  rude 
March  wind 
Persuade  to  seem  glad  breaths  of  sum- 
mer breeze, 

And  win  the  soil  that  fain  would  be 
unkind, 

To  swell  his  revenues  with  proud  in- 
crease ! 

He  is  the  gem;  and  all  the  landscape 
wide 

(So  doth  his  grandeur  isolate  the 
sense) 

Seems  but  the  setting,  worthless  all  be- 
side, 

An  empty  socket,  were  he  fallen 
thence. 

So,  from  oft  converse  with  life's  wintry 
gales, 

Should  man  learn  how  to  clasp  with 
tougher  roots 
The  inspiring   earth;   how  otherwise 
avails 

The  leaf-creating  sap  that  sunward 
shoots  ? 

So  everv  year  that  falls  with  noiseless 
flake 

Should  fill  old  scars  up  on  the  storm- 
ward  side, 

And  make  hoar  age  revered  for  age's 
sake, 

Not  for  traditions  of  youth's  leafy 
pride. 

So,  from  the  pinched  soil  of  a  churlish 
fate, 

True  hearts  compel  the  sap  of  stur- 
dier growth, 
So  between  earth  and  heaven  stand  sim- 
I  ply  great, 


78 


MISCELLANEOUS  POEMS. 


That  these  shall  seem  but  their  at- 
tendants both ; 
For  nature's  forces  with  obedient  zeal 
Wait  on  -the  rooted  faith  and  oaken 
will ; 

As  quickly  the  pretender's  cheat  they 
feel, 

And  turn  mad  Pucks  to  flout  and 
mock  him  still. 

Lord!  all  thy  works  are  lessons;  each 
contains 

Some  emblem  of  man's  all-containing 
soul ; 

Shall  he  make  fruitless  all  thy  glorious 
pains, 

Delving  within  thy  grace  an  eyeless 
mole  ? 

Make  me  the  least  of  thy  Dodona-grove, 
Cause  me  some  message  of  thy  truth 
to  bring, 

Speak  but  a  word  through  me,  nor  let 
thy  love 

Among  my  boughs  disdain  to  perch 
and  sing. 


AMBROSE. 

Never,  surely,  was  holier  man 
Than  Ambrose,  since  the  world  began ; 
With  diet  spare  and  raiment  thin 
He  shielded  himself  from  the  father  of 
sin ; 

With  bed  of  iron  and  scourgings  oft, 
His  heart  to  God's  hand  as  wax  made 
soft. 

Through  earnest  prayer  and  watchings 
long 

He  sought  to  know  'tween  right  and 
wrong, 

Much  wrestling  with  the  blessed  Word 
To  make  it  yield  the  sense  of  the  Lord, 
That  he  might  build  a  storm-proof  creed 
To  fold  the  flock  in  at  their  need. 

At  last  he  builded  a  perfect  faith, 
Fenced  round  about  with  The  Lord  thus 
saif  h  ; 

To  himself  he  fitted  the  doorway's  size, 
Meted  the  light  to  the  need  of  his  eyes, 
And  knew,  by  a  sure  and  inward  sign, 
That  the  work  of  his  fingers  was  divine. 

Then  Ambrose  said,  "All  those  shall  die 
The  eternal  death  who  believe  not  as  I  "  ; 
And  some  were  boiled,  some  burned  in  fire, 


Some  sawn  in  twain,  that  his  heart's 

desire, 

For  the  good  of  men's  souls,  might  be 

satisfied 

By  the  drawing  of  all  to  the  righteous 
side. 

One  day,  as  Ambrose  was  seeking  the 
truth 

In  his  lonely  walk,  he  saw  a  youth 
Resting  himself  in  the  shade  of  a  tree  ; 
It  had  never  been  granted  him  to  see 
So  shining  a  face,  and  the  good  man 
thought 

'Twere  pity  he  should  not  believe  as  he 
ought. 

So  he  set  himself  by  the  young  man's 
side, 

And  the  state  of  his  soul  with  questions 
tried  ; 

But  the  heart  of  the  stranger  was  hard- 
ened indeed, 

Nor  received  the  stamp  of  the  one  true 
creed  ; 

And  the  spirit  of  Ambrose  waxed  sore  to 
find 

Such  face  the  porch  of  so  narrow  a  mind. 

"As  each  beholds  in  cloud  and  fire 
The  shape  that  answers  his  own  desire, 
So  each,"  said  the  youth,  "in  the  Law 

shall  find 
The  figure  and  features  of  his  mind  ; 
And  to  each  in  his  mercy  hath  God 

allowed 

His  several  pillar  of  fire  and  cloud." 

The  soul  of  Ambrose  burned  with  zeal 
And  holy  wrath  for  the  young  man's 
weal : 

1 '  Believest  thou  then,  most  wretched 
youth," 

Cried  he,  "  a  dividual  essence  in  Truth? 
I  fear  me  thy  hea  rt  is  too  cramped  with  sin 
To  take  the  Lord  in  his  glory  in." 

Now  there  bubbled  beside  them  where 

they  stood 
A  fountain  of  waters  sweet  and  good ; 
The  youth  to  the  streamlet's  brink  drew 

near 

Saying,    "Ambrose,    thou   maker  of 

creeds,  look  here  !" 
Six  vases  of  crystal  then  he  took, 
And  set  them  along  the  edge  of  the 

brook. 


ABOVE  AND  BELOW.  —  THE  CAPTIVE. 


79 


"As  into  these  vessels  the  water  I  pour, 
There  shall  one  hold  less,  another  more, 
And  the  water  unchanged,  in  every  case, 
Shall  put  on  the  figure  of  the  vase  ; 
0  thou,  who  wouldst  unity  make  through 
strife, 

Canst  thou  fit  this  sign  to  the  Water  of 
Life  ?" 

When  Ambrose  looked  up,  he  stood  alone, 
The  youth  and  the  stream  and  the  vases 

were  gone  ; 
But  he  knew,  by  a  sense  of  humbled 

grace, 

He  had  talked  with  an  angel  face  to  face, 
And  felt  his  heart  change  inwardly, 
As  he  fell  on  his  knees  beneath  the  tree. 


ABOVE  AND  BELOW. 
I. 

0  dwellers  in  the  valley-land, 

Who  in  deep  twilight  grope  and 
cower, 

Till  the  slow  mountain's  dial-hand 
Shortens  to  noon's  triumphal  hour, 

While  ye  sit  idle,  do  ye  think 

The  Lord's  great  work  sits  idle  too  ? 

That  light  dare  not  o'erleap  the  brink 
Of  morn,  because 't  is  dark  with  you  ? 

Though  yet  your  valleys  skulk  in  night, 
In  God's  ripe  fields  the  day  is  cried, 

And  reapers,  with  their  sickles  bright, 
Troop,  singing,  down  the  mountain- 
side : 

Come  up,  and  feel  what  health  there  is 
In  the  frank  Dawn's  delighted  eyes, 

As,  bending  with  a  pitying  kiss, 

The  night-shed  tears  of  Earth  she 
dries  ! 

The  Lord  wants  reapers  :  0,  mount  up, 
Before  night  comes,  and  says,  "Too 
late  ! " 

Stay  not  for  taking  scrip  or  cup, 
The  Master  hungers  while  ye  wait ; 

'T  is  from  these  heights  alone  your  eyes 
The  advancing  spears  of  day  can  see, 

That  o'er  the  eastern  hill-tops  rise, 
To  break  your  long  captivity. 

II. 

Lone  watcher  on  the  mountain-height, 
It  is  right  precious  to  behold 

The  first  long  surf  of  climbing  light 
Flood  all  the  thirsty  east  with  gold  ; 


But  we,  who  in  the  shadow  sit, 
Know  also  when  the  day  is  nigh, 

Seeing  thy  shining  forehead  lit 
With  his  inspiring  prophecy. 

Thou  hast  thine  office  ;  we  have  ours  ; 

God  lacks  not  early  service  here, 
But  what  are  thine  eleventh  hours 

He  counts  with  us  for  morning  cheer ; 
Our  day,  for  Him,  is  long  enough, 

And  when  he  giveth  work  to  do, 
The  bruised  reed  is  amply  tough 

To  pierce  the  shield  of  error  through. 

But  not  the  less  do  thou  aspire 

Light's  earlier  messages  to  preach  ; 
Keep  back  no  syllable  of  fire, 

Plunge  deep  the  rowels  of  thy  speech. 
Yet  God  deems  not  thine  aeried  sight 

More  worthy  than  our  twilight  dim ; 
For  meek  Obedience,  too,  is  Light, 

And  following  that  is  finding  Him. 


THE  CAPTIVE. 

It  was  past  the  hour  of  trysting, 
But  she  lingered  for  him  still ; 

Like  a  child,  the  eager  streamlet 
Leaped  and  laughed  adown  the  hill, 

Happy  to  be  free  at  twilight 
From  its  toiling  at  the  mill. 

Then  the  great  moon  on  a  sudden 

Ominous,  and  red  as  blood, 
Startling  as  a  new  creation, 

O'er  the  eastern  hill- top  stood, 
Casting  deep  and  deeper  shadows 

Through  the  mystery  of  the  wood. 

Dread  closed  huge  and  vague  about  her, 
And  her  thoughts  turned  fearfully 

To  her  heart,  if  there  some  shelter 
From  the  silence  there  might  be, 

Like  bare  cedars  leaning  inland 
From  the  blighting  of  the  sea. 

Yet  he  came  not,  and  the  stillness 
Dampened  round  her  like  a  tomb ; 

She  could  feel  cold  eyes  of  spirits 
Looking  on  her  through  the  gloom, 

She  could  hear  the  groping  footsteps 
Of  some  blind,  gigantic  doom. 

Suddenly  the  silence  wavered 
Like  a  light  mist  in  the  wind, 

For  a  voice  broke  gently  through  it, 
Felt  like  sunshine  by  the  blind, 


80  MISCELLANEOUS  POEMS. 


And  the  dread,  like  mist  in  sunshine, 
Furled  serenely  from  her  mind. 

"  Once  my  love,  my  love  forever, 
Flesh  or  spirit  still  the  same, 

If  I  missed  the  hour  of  try  sting, 
Do  not  think  my  faith  to  blame ; 

I,  alas,  was  made  a  captive, 
As  from  Holy  Land  I  came. 

M  On  a  green  spot  in  the  desert, 
Gleaming  like  an  emerald  star, 

"Where  a  palm-tree,  in  lone  silence, 
Yearning  for  its  mate  afar, 

Droops  above  a  silver  runnel, 
Slender  as  a  scimitar, 

"  There  thou  'It  find  the  humble  postern 

To  the  castle  of  my  foe  ; 
If  thy  love  burn  clear  and  faithful, 

Strike  the  gateway,  green  and  low, 
Ask  to  enter,  and  the  warder 

Surely  will  not  say  thee  no." 

Slept  again  the  aspen  silence, 
But  her  loneliness  was  o'er  ; 

Round  her  heart  a  motherly  patience 
"Wrapt  its  arms  forevermore ; 

From  her  soul  ebbed  back  the  sorrow, 
Leaving  smooth  the  golden  shore. 

Donned  she  now  the  pilgrim  scallop, 
Took  the  pilgrim  staff  in  hand ; 

Like  a  cloud-shade,  flitting  eastward, 
Wandered  she  o'er  sea  and  land ; 

And  her  footsteps  in  the  desert 
Fell  like  cool  rain  on  the  sand. 

Soon,  beneath  the  palm-tree's  shadow, 
Knelt  she  at  the  postern  low ; 

And  thereat  she  knocketh  gently, 
Fearing  much  the  warder's  no ; 

All  her  heart  stood  still  and  listened, 
As  the  door  swung  backward  slow. 

There  she  saw  no  surly  warder 
With  an  eye  like  bolt  and  bar  ; 

Through  her  soul  a  sense  of  music 
Throbbed,  and,  like  a  guardian  Lar, 

On  the  threshold  stood  an  angel, 
Bright  and  silent  as  a  star. 

Fairest  seemed  he  of  God's  seraphs, 

And  her  spirit)  lily-wise, 
Blossomed  when  he  turned  upon  her 

The  deep  welcome  of  his  eyes, 
Sending  upward  to  that  sunlight 

All  its  dew  for  sacrifice. 


Then  she  heard  a  voice  come  onward 
Singing  with  a  rapture  new, 

As  Eve  heard  the  songs  in  Eden, 
Dropping  earthward  with  the  dew ; 

Well  she  knew  the  happy  singer, 
"Well  the  happy  song  she  knew. 

Forward  leaped  she  o'er  the  threshold, 

Eager  as  a  glancing  surf ; 
Fell  from  her  the  spirit's  languor, 

Fell  from  her  the  body's  scurf ; 
'Xeath  the  palm  next  day  some  Arabs 

Found  a  corpse  upon  the  turf. 


THE  BERCH-TREE. 

Rippling  through  thy  branches  goes 
the  sunshine, 

Among  thy  leaves  that  palpitate  for- 
ever ; 

Ovid  in  thee  a  pining  Xymph  had  pris- 
oned, 

The  soul  once  of  some  tremulous  inland 
river, 

Quivering  to  tell  her  woe,  but,  ah  ! 
dumb,  dumb  forever  ! 

"While  all  the  forest,  witched  with  slum- 
berous moonshine, 
Holds  up  its  leaves  in  happy,  happy 

silence, 

"Waiting  the  dew,  with  breath  and  pulse 

suspended, 
I   hear  afar  thy  whispering,  gleamy 

islands, 

And  track  thee  wakeful  still  amid  the 
wide-hung  silence. 

Upon  the  brink  of  some  wood- nestled 
lakelet, 

Thy  foliage,  like  the  tresses  of  a  Dryad, 
Dripping  about  thy  slim  white  stem, 

whose  shadow 
Slopes  quivering  down  the  water's  dusky 

quiet, 

Thou  shrink'st  as  on  her  bath's  edge 
would  some  startled  Dryad. 

Thou  art  the  go-between  of  rustic  lovers  ; 
Thy  white  bark  has  their  secrets  in  its 
keeping  ; 

Reuben  writes  here  the  happy  name  of 

Patience, 

And  thy  lithe  boughs  hang  murmuring 

and  weeping 
Above  her,  as  she  steals  the  mystery 

from  thy  keeping 


AN  INTERVIEW  WITH  MILES  STANDISH. 


81 


Thou  art  to  me  like  my  beloved  maiden, 
So  frankly  coy,  so  full  of  trembly  confi- 
dences ; 

Thy  shadow  scarce  seems  shade,  thy 

pattering  leaflets 
Sprinkle  their  gathered  sunshine  o'er 

my  senses, 
And  Nature  gives  me  all  her  summer 

confidences. 

Whether  my  heart  with  hope  or  sorrow 
tremble, 

Thou  sympathizest  still ;  wild  and  un- 
quiet, 

I  fling  me  down  ;  thy  ripple,  like  a  river, 
Flows  valleyward,  where  calmness  is, 
and  by  it 

My  heart  is  floated  down  into  the  land 
of  quiet. 


AN  INTERVIEW  WITH  MILES 
STANDISH. 

I  sat  one  evening  in  my  room, 

In  that  sweet  hour  of  twilight 
When  blended  thoughts,  half  light,  half 
gloom, 

Throng  through  the  spirit's  skylight ; 
The  flames  by  fits  curled  round  the  bars, 

Or  up  the  chimney  crinkled, 
While  embers  dropped  like  falling  stars, 

And  in  the  ashes  tinkled. 

I  sat  and  mused  ;  the  fire  burned  low, 

And,  o'er  my  senses  stealing, 
Crept  something  of  the  ruddy  glow 

That  bloomed  on  wall  and  ceiling  ; 
My  pictures  (they  are  very  few, 

The  heads  of  ancient  wise  men) 
Smoothed  down  their  knotted  fronts, 
and  grew 

As  rosy  as  excisemen. 

My  antique  high-backed  Spanish  chair 

Felt  thrills  through  wood  and  leather, 
That  had  been  strangers  since  whilere, 

Mid  Andalusian  heather, 
The  oak  that  made  its  sturdy  frame 

His  happy  arms  stretched  over 
The  ox  whose  fortunate  hide  became 

The  bottom's  polished  cover. 

It  came  out  in  that  famous  bark, 
That  brought  our  sires  intrepid, 

Capacious  as  another  ark 
For  furniture  decrepit ; 

6 


For,  as  that  saved  of  bird  and  beast 

A  pair  for  propagation, 
So  has  the  seed  of  these  increased 

And  furnished  half  the  nation. 

Kings  sit,  they  say,  in  slippery  seats ; 

But  those  slant  precipices 
Of  ice  the  northern  voyager  meets 

Less  slippery  are  than  this  is  ; 
To  cling  therein  would  pass  the  wit 

Of  royal  man  or  woman, 
And  whatsoe'er  can  stay  in  it 

Is  more  or  less  than  human. 

I  offer  to  all  bores  this  perch, 
Dear  well-intentioned  people 

With  heads  as  void  as  week-day  church, 
Tongues  longer  than  the  steeple  ; 

To  folks  with  missions,  whose  gaunt 
eyes 

See  golden  ages  rising,  — 
Salt  of  the  earth  !  in  what  queer  Guys 
Thou  'rt  fond  of  crystallizing  ! 

My  wonder,  then,  was  not  unmixed 

With  merciful  suggestion, 
When,  as  my  roving  eyes  grew  fixed 

Upon  the  chair  in  question, 
I  saw  its  trembling  arms  enclose 

A  figure  grim  and  rusty, 
Whose  doublet  plain  and  plainer  hose 

Were  something  worn  and  dusty. 

Now  even  such  men  as  Nature  forms 

Merely  to  fill  the  street  with, 
Once  turned  to  ghosts  by  hungry  worms, 

Are  serious  things  to  meet  with  ; 
Your  penitent  spirits  are  no  jokes, 

And,  though  I 'm  not  averse  to 
A  quiet  shade,  even  they  are  folks 

One  cares  not  to  speak  first  to. 

Who  knows,  thought  I,  but  he  has  come, 

By  Charon  kindly  ferried, 
To  tell  me  of  a  mighty  sum 

Behind  my  wainscot  buried  ? 
There  is  a  buccaneerish  air 

About  that  garb  outlandish  — 
Just  then  the  ghost  drew  up  his  chair 

And  said,  "  My  name  is  Standish. 

"  I  come  from  Plymouth,  deadly  bored 
With  toasts,  and  songs,  and  speeches* 

As  long  and  flat  as  my  old  sword, 
As  threadbare  as  my  breeches  : 

They  understand  us  Pilgrims  !  they, 
Smooth  men  with  rosy  faces, 


52 


v:s:zlljl>-i:vs  f:lvs. 


Strength's  kmt.s  and  grarls  ill  par  e  a 

avriy. 

„-.--  *  v^m  a^h  in  ilieir  plates! 

44  We  had  some  toughness  in  onr  grain, 

the  tt  right.;   Srr  rS  15 

>~:r        rhr       that  light.?  the  train 
Of  drawing-room  Tvrtaeuses : 

Tkey  talk  about  their  Pilgrim  blood, 
Their  birthright  high  and  holy  ! 

A  :      rt  in-str-:  :..  :  at  ends  in  nana 
Methinks  is  melancholy. 

Er  hai  stif  knees,  the  Fnrit.it: , 
That  were  net :  g»d  i:  Vnding  ; 


ntng: 
^  ere, 

oer, 


Fr~arm.  no:   r  1 :  :1  should  not 

stain 

The  hen.  of  thv  white  vesture. 

44 1  feel  the  sool  in  me  draw  near 

The  mount  of  prophesying  ; 
In  this  bleak  wilderness  I  blear 

A  John  the  Baptist  crying  ; 
z  a:  in  the  east  I  see  nplean 

The  streaks  of  first  forewarning, 
An  .1  theywh:  stwei  the  light  shall  reap 

Ihe  galien  sheaves  :>f  morning. 

**  Child  of  our  travail  and  onr  woe, 

Light  in  our  day  of  sorrow. 
±  tar :  \:  gh  mv  rart  st  irit  1  foreknow 

The  glory  of  thy  morrow ; 
I  hear  great  steps,  that  through  the  shade 

I'ra-s-  richer  stall  ani  nigher. 
Ani  v:i;es  ..all  like  that  which  "bade 

The  prophet  come  up  higher." 

1  Ixked.  n:  :":mt  mine  eves  tonld  find, 

I  heart  the  re-d  oo-k  crowing, 
And  through,  my  window-chinks  the 

A  dismal  tune  was  blowing ; 
lhtttght  I.  My  neigh:  ::  Buckingham 

Hatn  scmewnat  tn  hino  gritty, 
Sue  Pil^nvm-stnz  tha:  hates  all  sham, 

And  he  will  print  my  ditty. 


"Good  sir,"  I  said,  "you  seem  much 
stirred : 

The  sacred  compromises  —  " 
44  Xow  God  confound  the  dastard  wad! 

Mv  rail  thereat  arises  : 
Northward  it  hath  this  sense  alone, 

That  v in.  vonr  ::ns;ien  e  b Ani: nr. 
Shall  bow  your  fooTs  nose  to  the  stone, 

v.  nen  slavery  feels  lake  granting. 

44  T  is  shame  to  see  such  painted  sticks 

In  Vane's  and  Winthrop's  places, 
T:  see  y:::  sr irit  ::  Seventy-six. 

Drag  humblv  in  the  traces, 
With  slavery's*  lash  upon  her  back, 

And  herds  of  office-holders 
To  shout  applause,  as,  with  a  crack, 

It  peels  her  patient  shoulders. 

44  W*  forefathers  to  such  a  root!  — 
No,  by  my  faith  in  God's  word !  " 

Half  rose  the  ghost,  and  half  drew  out 
The  ghost  of  his  old  broadsword, 

Th~n  thrust  it  slowly  hack  again, 
Ani  sail,  with  reverent  gesrare. 


'F  FTGITIVE 

SEQNGTON. 


the  words, 

man  ; 

dungeoned 
ith  ease 
et  pulse  of 


1  rlrst 


An : 


7:  this 


treason  to  the 
dialect,  — our 

ekery  of  piling 


TO  THE  DANDELION. 


83 


While  we  look  coldly  on  and  see  law- 
shielded  ruffians  slay 

The  men  who  fain  would  win  their  own, 
the  heroes  of  to-day  ! 

Are  we  pledged  to  craven  silence  ?  0, 

fling  it  to  the  wind, 
The  parchment  wall  that  bars  us  from 

the  least  of  human  kind, 
That  makes  us  cringe  and  temporize, 

and  dumbly  stand  at  rest, 
While  Pity's  burning  flood  of  words  is 

red-hot  in  the  breast  ! 

Though  we  break  our  fathers'  promise, 

we  have  nobler  duties  first ; 
The  traitor  to  Humanity  is  the  traitor 

most  accursed ; 
Man  is  more  than  Constitutions  ;  better 

rot  beneath  the  sod, 
Than  be  true  to  Church  and  State  while 

we  are  doubly  false  to  God  ! 

We  owe  allegiance  to  the  State  ;  but 

deeper,  truer,  more, 
To  the  sympathies  that  God  hath  set 

within  our  spirit's  core  ; 
Our  country  claims  our  fealty  ;  we  grant 

it  so,  but  then 
Before  Man  made  us  citizens,  great 

Nature  made  us  men. 

He 's  true  to  God  who 's  true  to  man  ; 

wherever  wrong  is  done, 
To  the  humblest  and  the  weakest,  'neath 

the  all-beholding  sun, 
That  wrong  is  also  done  to  us  ;  and  they 

are  slaves  most  base, 
Whose  love  of  right  is  for  themselves, 

and  not  for  all  their  race. 

God  works  for  all.  Ye  cannot  hem  the. 
hope  of  being  free 

With  parallels  of  latitude,  with  moun- 
tain-range or  sea. 

Put  golden  padlocks  on  Truth's  lips,  be 
callous  as  ye  will, 

From  soul  to  soul,  o'er  all  the  world, 
leaps  one  electric  thrill. 

Chain  down  your  slaves  with  ignorance, 
ye  cannot  keep  apart, 

With  all  your  craft  of  tyranny,  the  hu- 
man heart  from  heart : 

When  first  the  Pilgrims  landed  on  the 
Bay  State's  iron  shore, 

The  word  went  forth  that  slavery  should 
one  day  be  no  more. 


Out  from  the  land  of  bondage 't  is  de- 
creed our  slaves  shall  go, 

And  signs  to  us  are  offered,  as  erst  to 
Pharaoh : 

If  we  are  blind,  their  exodus,  like  Is- 
rael's of  yore, 

Through  a  Ked  Sea  is  doomed  to  be, 
whose  surges  are  of  gore. 

'T  is  ours  to  save  our  brethren,  with 

peace  and  love  to  win 
Their  darkened  hearts  from  error,  ere 

they  harden  it  to  sin  ; 
But  if  before  his  duty  man  with  listless 

spirit  stands, 
Erelong  the  Great  Avenger  takes  the 

work  from  out  his  hands. 


TO  THE  DANDELION. 

Dear  common  flower,  that  grow'st 
beside  the  way, 
Fringing  the  dusty  road  with  harmless 
gold, 

First  pledge  of  blithesome  May, 
Which  children  pluck,  and,  full  of  pride 
uphold, 

High-hearted   bu.ccanee.rs,  o'erjoyed 
that  they 

An  Eldorado  in  the  grass  have  found, 
Which  not  the  rich  earth's  ample 
round 

May  match  in  wealth,  thou  art  more 

dear  to  me 
Than  all  the  prouder  summer-blooms 

may  be. 

Gold  such  as  thine  ne'er  drew  the 
Spanish  prow 
Through  the  primeval  hush  of  Indian 

seas, 

Nor  wrinkled  the  lean  brow 
Of  age,  to  rob  the  lover's  heart  of  ease  ; 
'T  is  the  Spring's  largess,  which  she 
scatters  now 
To  rich  and  poor  alike,  with  lavish  hand, 
Though  most  hearts  never  under- 
stand 

To  take  it  at  God's  value,  but  pass  by 
The  offered  wealth  with  unrewarded 
eye. 

Thou  art  my  tropics  and  mine  Italy ; 
To  look  at  thee  unlocks  a  warmer  clime ; 

The  eyes  thou  givest  me 
Are  in  the  heart,  and  heed  not  space  or 
time : 


84 


MISCELLANEOUS  POEMS. 


Not  in  mid  June  the  golden-cui- 

rassed  bee 

Feels  a  more  summer-like  warm  ravish- 
ment 

In  the  white  lily's  breezy  tent, 
His  fragrant  Sybaris,  than  I,  when 
lirst 

From  the  dark  green  thy  yellow  cir- 
cles burst. 

Then  think  I  of  deep  shadows  on  the 
grass, 

Of  meadows  where  in  sun  the  cattle 
graze, 

Where,  as  the  breezes  pass, 
The  gleaming  rushes  lean  a  thousand 
ways, 

Of  leaves  that  slumber  in  a  cloudy 
mass, 

Or  whiten  in  the  wind,  of  waters  blue 
That  from  the    distance  sparkle 
through 

Some  woodland  gap,  and  of  a  sky 
above, 

Where  one  white  cloud  like  a  stray 
lamb  doth  move. 

My  childhood's  earliest  thoughts  are 
linked  with  thee ; 
The  sight  of  thee  calls  back  the  robin's 
song, 

Who,  from  the  dark  old  tree 
Beside  the  door,  sang  clearly  all  day 
long, 

And  I,  secure  in  childish  piety, 
Listened  as  if  I  heard  an  angel  sing 

With  news  from  heaven,  which  he 
could  bring 
Fresh  every  day  to  my  untainted 
ears 

When  birds  and  flowers  and  I  were 
happy  peers. 

How  like  a  prodigal  doth  nature  seem, 
When  thou,  for  all  thy  gold,  so  common 
art! 

Thou  teachest  me  to  deem 
More  sacredly  of  every  human  heart, 
Since  each  reflects  in  joy  its  scanty 
gleam 

Of  heaven,  and  could  some  wondrous 
secret  show, 
Did  we  but  pay  the  love  we  owe, 
And  with  a  child's  undoubting  wis- 
dom look 

On  all  these  living  pages  of  God's 
book. 


THE  GHOST-SEER. 

Ye  who,  passing  graves  by  night, 

Glance  not  to  the  left  nor  right, 

Lest  a  spirit  should  arise, 

Cold  and  white,  to  freeze  your  eves, 

Some  weak  phantom,  which  your  doubt 

Shapes  upon  the  dark  without 

From  the  dark  within,  a  guess 

At  the  spirit's  deathlessness, 

Which  ye  entertain  with  fear 

In  your  self-built  dungeon  here, 

Where  ye  sell  your  God-given  lives 

J  list  for  gold  to  buy  you  gyves,  — 

Ye  without  a  shudder  meet 

In  the  city's  noonday  street, 

Spirits  sadder  and  more  dread 

Than  from  out  the  clay  have  fled, 

Buried,  beyond  hope  of  light, 

In  the  body's  haunted  night ! 

See  ye  not  that  woman  pale  ? 
There  are  bloodhounds  on  her  trail ! 
Bloodhounds  two,  all  gaunt  and  lean, 
(For  the  soul  their  scent  is  keen,) 
Want  and  Sin,  and  Sin  is  last, 
They  have  followed  far  and  fast ; 
Want  gave  tongue,  and,  at  her  howl, 
Sin  awakened  with  a  growl. 
Ah,  poor  girl !  she  had  a  right 
To  a  blessing  from  the  light ; 
Title-deeds  to  sky  and  earth 
God  gave  to  her  at  her  birth ; 
But,  before  they  were  enjoyed, 
Poverty  had  made  them  void, 
And  had  drunk  the  sunshine  up 
From  all  nature's  ample  cup, 
Leaving  her  a  first-born's  share 
In  the  dregs  of  darkness  there. 
Often,  on  the  sidewalk  bleak, 
Hungry,  all  alone,  and  weak, 
She  has  seen,  in  night  and  storm, 
Rooms  o'erflow  with  firelight  warm, 
Which,  outside  the  window-glass, 
Doubled  all  the  cold,  alas  ! 
Till  each  ray  that  on  her  fell 
Stabbed  her  like  an  icicle, 
And  she  almost  loved  the  wail 
Of  the  bloodhounds  on  her  trail. 
Till  the  floor  becomes  her  bier, 
She  shall  feel  their  pantings  near, 
Close  upon  her  very  heels, 
Spite  of  all  the  din  of  wheels ; 
Shivering  on  her  pallet  poor, 
She  shall  hear  them  at  the  door 
Whine  and  scratch  to  be  let  in, 
Sister  bloodhounds,  Want  and  Sin ! 


THE  GHOST-SEER. 


85 


Hark  !  that  rustle  of  a  dress, 
Stiff  with  lavish  costliness  ! 
Here  comes  one  whose   cheek  would 
flush 

But  to  have  her  garment  brush 

'Gainst  the  girl  whose  fingers  thin 

Wove  the  weary  broidery  in, 

Bending  backward  from  her  toil, 

Lest  her  tears  the  silk  might  soil, 

And,  in  midnights  chill  and  murk, 

Stitched  her  life  into  the  work, 

Shaping  from  her  bitter  thought 

Heart's-ease  and  forget-me-not, 

Satirizing  her  despair 

With  the  emblems  woven  there. 

Little  doth  the  wearer  heed 

Of  the  heart-break  in  the  brede  ; 

A  hyena  by  her  side 

Skulks,  down-looking,  —  it  is  Pride. 

He  digs  for  her  in  the  earth, 

Where  lie  all  her  claims  of  birth, 

With  his  foul  paws  rooting  o'er 

Some  long-buried  ancestor, 

Who,  perhaps,  a  statue  won 

By  the  ill  deeds  he  had  done, 

By  the  innocent  blood  he  shed, 

By  the  desolation  spread 

Over  happy  villages, 

Blotting  out  the  smile  of  peace. 

There  walks  Judas,  he  who  sold 
Yesterday  his  Lord  for  gold, 
Sold  God's  presence  in  his  heart 
For  a  proud  step  in  the  mart ; 
He  hath  dealt  in  flesh  and  blood ; 
At  the  bank  his  name  is  good ; 
At  the  bank,  and  only  there, 
'T  is  a  marketable  ware. 
In  his  eyes  that  stealthy  gleam 
Was  not  learned  of  sky  or  stream, 
But  it  has  the  cold,  hard  glint 
Of  new  dollars  from  the  mint. 
Open  now  your  spirit's  eyes, 
Look  through  that  poor  clay  disguise 
Which  has  thickened,  day  by  day, 
Till  it  keeps  all  light  at  bay, 
And  his  soul  in  pitchy  gloom 
Gropes  about  its  narrow  tomb, 
From  whose  dank  and  slimy  walls 
Drop  by  drop  the  horror  falls. 
Look  !  a  serpent  lank  and  cold 
Hugs  his  spirit  fold  on  fold ; 
From  his  heart,  all  day  and  night, 
It  doth  suck  God's  blessed  light. 
Drink  it  will,  and  drink  it  must, 
Till  the  cup  holds  naught  but  dust ; 
All  day  long  he  hears  it  hiss, 


Writhing  in  its  fiendish  bliss ; 
All  night  long  he  sees  its  eyes 
Flicker  with  foul  ecstasies, 
As  the  spirit  ebbs  away 
Into  the  absorbing  clay. 

Who  is  he  that  skulks,  afraid 
Of  the  trust  he  has  betrayed, 
Shuddering  if  perchance  a  gleam 
Of  old  nobleness  should  stream 
Through  the  pent,  unwholesome  room. 
Where    his    shrunk    soul    cowers  in 
gloom, 

Spirit  sad  beyond  the  rest 

By  more  instinct  for  the  best  ? 

'T  is  a  poet  who  was  sent 

For  a  bad  world's  punishment, 

By  compelling  it  to  see 

Golden  glimpses  of  To  Be, 

By  compelling  it  to  hear 

Songs  that  prove  the  angels  near  ; 

Who  was  sent  to  be  the  tongue 

Of  the  weak  and  spirit-wrung, 

Whence  the  fiery-winged  Despair 

In  men's  shrinking  eyes  might  flare. 

'T  is  our  hope  doth  fashion  us 

To  base  use  or  glorious  : 

He  who  might  have  been  a  lark 

Of  Truth's  morning,  from  the  dark 

Raining  down  melodious  hope 

Of  a  freer,  broader  scope, 

Aspirations,  prophecies, 

Of  the  spirit's  full  sunrise, 

Chose  to  be  a  bird  of  night, 

That,  with  eyes  refusing  light, 

Hooted  from  some  hollow  tree 

Of  the  world's  idolatry. 

'T  is  his  punishment  to  hear 

Flutterings  of  pinions  near, 

And  his  own  vain  wings  to  feel 

Drooping  downward  to  his  heel, 

All  their  grace  and  import  lost, 

Burdening  his  weary  ghost : 

Ever  walking  by  his  side 

He  must  see  his  angel  guide, 

Who  at  intervals  doth  turn 

Looks  on  him  so  sadly  stern, 

With  such  ever-new  surprise 

Of  hushed  anguish  in  her  eyes, 

That  it  seems  the  light  of  day 

From  around  him  shrinks  away, 

Or  drops  blunted  from  the  wall 

Built  around  him  by  his  fall. 

Then  the  mountains,  whose  white  peaks 

Catch  the  morning's  earliest  streaks, 

He  must  see,  where  prophets  sit, 

Turning  east  their  faces  lit, 


86 


MISCELLANEOUS  POEMS. 


Whence,  with  footsteps  beautiful, 
To  the  earth,  yet  dim  and  dull, 
They  the  gladsome  tidings  bring 
Of  the  sunlight's  hastening : 
Never  can  these  hills  of  bliss 
Be  o'erclimbed  by  feet  like  his  ! 

But  enough  !  0,  do  not  dare 
From  the  next  the  veil  to  tear, 
Woven  of  station,  trade,  or  dress, 
More  obscene  than  nakedness, 
Wherewith  plausible  culture  drapes 
Fallen  Nature's  myriad  shapes  ! 
Let  us  rather  love  to  mark 
How  the  unextinguished  spark 
Will  shine  through  the  thin  disguise 
Of  our  customs,  pomps,  and  lies, 
And,  not  seldom  blown  to  flame, 
Vindicate  its  ancient  claim. 


STUDIES  FOR  TWO  HEADS. 
I. 

Some  sort  of  heart  I  know  is  hers,  — 
I  chanced  to  feel  her  pulse  one  night ; 

A  brain  she  has  that  never  errs, 
And  yet  is  never  nobly  right ; 

It  does  not  leap  to  great  results, 
But,  in  some  corner  out  of  sight, 
Suspects  a  spot  of  latent  blight, 
And,  o'er  the  impatient  infinite, 

She  bargains,  haggles,  and  consults. 

Her  eye,  —  it  seems  a  chemic  test 

And  drops  upon  you  like  an  acid ; 
It  bites  you  with  unconscious  zest, 

So  clear  and  bright,  so  coldly  placid  ; 
It  holds  you  quietly  aloof, 

It  holds,  —  and  yet  it  does  not  win 
you;  , 
It  merely  puts  you  to  the  proof 

And  sorts  what  qualities  are  in  you  ; 
It  smiles,  but  never  brings  you  nearer, 

It  lights,  — her  nature  draws  not  nigh  ; 
'T  is  but  that  yours  is  growing  clearer 

To  her  assays  ;  —  yes,  try  and  try, 

You  '11  get  no  deeper  than  her  eye. 

There,  you  are  classified  :  she's  gone 

Far,  far  away  into  herself ; 
Each  with  its  Latin  label  on, 
Your  poor  components,  one  by  one, 

Are  laid  upon  their  proper  shelf 
In  her  compact  and  ordered  mind, 
And  what  of  you  is  left  behind 
Is  no  more  to  her  than  the  wind ; 


In  that  clear  brain,  which,  day  and 
night, 

No  movement  of  the  heart  e'er  jostles, 
Her  friends  are  ranged  on  left  and 

right,  — 
Here,  silex,  hornblende,  sienite  ; 

There,  animal  remains  and  fossils. 

And  yet,  0  subtile  analyst, 

That  canst  each  property  detect 

Of  mood  or  grain,  that  canst  untwist 
Each  tangled  skein  of  intellect, 

And  with  thy  scalpel  eyes  lay  bare 

Each  mental  nerve  more  line  "than  air,  — 
0  brain  exact,  that  in  thy  scales 

Canst  weigh  the  sun  and  never  err, 
For  once  thy  patient  science  fails, 
One  problem  still  defies  thy  art ;  — 

Thou  never  canst  compute  for  her 

The  distance  and  diameter 
Of  any  simple  human  heart. 

II. 

Hear  him  but  speak,  and  you  will  feel 
The  shadows  of  the  Portico 

Over  your  tranquil  spirit  steal, 
To  modulate  all  joy  and  woe 
To  one  subdued,  subduing  glow  ; 

Above  our  squabbling  business-hours, 

Like  Phidian  Jove's,  his  beauty  lowers, 

His  nature  satirizes  ours  ; 

A  form  and  front  of  Attic  grace, 

He  shames  the  higgling  market-place, 

And  dwarfs  our  more  mechanic  powers. 

What  throbbing  verse  can  fitly  render 
That  face  so  pure,  so  trembling-ten- 
der? 

Sensation  glimmers  through  its  rest, 
It  speaks  unmanacled  by  words, 

As  full  of  motion  as  a  nest 
That  palpitates  with  unfledged  birds  ; 

'T  is  likest  to  Bethesda's  stream, 
Forewarned  through  all  its  thrilling 
springs, 

White  with  the  angel's  coming  gleam, 
And  rippled  with  his  fanning  wings. 

Hear  him  unfold  his  plots  and  plans, 
And  larger  destinies  seem  man's  ; 
You  conjure  from  his  glowing  face 
The  omen  of  a  fairer  race  ; 
With  one  grand  trope  he  boldly  spans 

The  gulf  wherein  so  many  fall, 

'Twixt  possible  and  actual ; 
His  first  swift  word,  talaria-shod, 
Exuberant  with  conscious  God, 


ON  A  PORTRAIT  OF  DANTE.  —  ON  THE  DEATH  OF  A  CHILD.  87 


Out  of  the  choir  of  planets  blots 
The  present  earth  with  all  its  spots. 

Himself  unshaken  as  the  sky, 
His  words,  like  whirlwinds,  spin  on 
high 

Systems  and  creeds  pellmell  together ; 
'T  is  strange  as  to  a  deaf  man's  eye, 
While  trees  uprooted  splinter  by, 

The  dumb  turmoil  of  stormy  weather  ; 

Less  of  iconoclast  than  shaper, 
His  spirit,  safe  behind  the  reach 
Of  the  tornado  of  his  speech, 

Burns  calmly  as  a  glowworm's  ta- 
per. 

So  great  in  speech,  but,  ah  !  in  act 

So  overrun  with  vermin  troubles, 
The  coarse,  sharp- cornered,  ugly  fact 

Of  life  collapses  all  his  bubbles  : 
Had  he  but  lived  in  Plato's  day, 

He  might,  unless  my  fancy  errs, 
Have  shared  that  golden  voice's  sway 

O'er  barefooted  philosophers. 
Our  nipping  climate  hardly  suits 
The  ripening  of  ideal  fruits  : 
His  theories  vanquish  us  all  summer, 
But  winter  makes  him    dumb  and 
dumber ; 

To  see  him  mid  life's  needful  things 

Is  something  painfully  bewildering  ; 
He  seems  an.  angel  with  clipt  wings 

Tied  to  a  mortal  wife  and  children, 
And  by  a  brother  seraph  taken 
In  the  act  of  eating  eggs  and  bacon. 
Like  a  clear  fountain,  his  desire 

Exults  and  leaps  toward  the  light, 
In  every  drop  it  says  4  4  Aspire  !  " 

Striving  for  more  ideal  height ; 
And  as  the  fountain,  falling  thence, 

Crawls  baffled  through  the  common 
gutter, 

So,  from  his  speech's  eminence, 
He  shrinks  into  the  present  tense, 
Unkinged  by  foolish  bread  and  butter. 

Yet  smile  not,  worldling,  for  in  deeds 
Not  all  of  life  that's  brave  and  wise 
is; 

He  strews  an  ampler  future's  seeds, 
'T  is  your  fault  if  no  harvest  rises  ; 

Smooth  back  the  sneer ;  for  is  it  naught 
That  all  he  is  and  has  is  Beauty's  ? 

By  soul  the  soul's  gains  must  be  wrought, 

The  Actual  claims  our  coarser  thought, 
The  Ideal  hath  its  higher  duties. 


ON  A  PORTRAIT  OF  DANTE  BY  GIOTTO. 

Can  this  be  thou  who,  lean  and  pale, 

With  such  immitigable  eye 
Didst  look  upon  those  writhing  souls  in 
bale, 

And  note  each  vengeance,  and  pass  by 
Unmoved,  save  when  thy  heart  by  chanue 
Cast  backward  one  forbidden  glance, 
And  saw  Francesca,  with  child's  glee, 
Subdue  and  mount  thy  wild-horse  knee 
And  with  proud  hands  control  its  fiery 
prance  ? 

With  half-drooped  lids,  and  smooth, 
round  brow, 

And  eye  remote,  that  inly  sees 
Fair  Beatrice's  spirit  wandering  now 

In  some  sea-lulled  Hesperides, 
Thou  movest  through  the  jarring  street, 
Secluded  from  the  noise  of  feet 

By  her  gift-blossom  in  thy  hand, 

Thy   branch    of    palm   from  Holy 
Land ; — 

No  trace  is  here  of  ruin's  fiery  sleet. 

Yet  there  is  something  round  thy  lips 

That  prophesies  the  coming  doom, 
The  soft,  gray  herald-shadow  ere  the 
eclipse 

Notches  the  perfect  disk  with  gloom ; 
A  something  that  would  banish  thee, 
And  thine  untamed  pursuer  be, 

From  men  and  their  unworthy  fates, 
Though  Florence  had  not  shut  her 
gates, 

And  Grief  had  loosed  her  clutch  and  let 
thee  free. 

Ah  !  he  who  follows  fearlessly 

The  beckonings  of  a  poet-heart 
Shall  wTander,  and  without  the  world's 
decree, 

A  banished  man  in  field  and  mart ; 
Harder  than  Florence'  walls  the  bar 
Which  with  deaf  sternness  holds  him 
far 

From  home  and  friends,  till  death's 
release, 

And  makes  his  only  prayer  for  peace, 
Like  thine,  scarred  veteran  of  a  lifelong 
war ! 

ON  THE  DEATH  OF  A  FRIEND'S  CHILD. 

Death  never  came  so  nigh  to  me  before, 
Nor  showed  me  his  mild  face  :  oft  had  I 
mused 


88 


MISCELLANEOUS  POEMS. 


Of  calm  and  peace  and  deep  forgetful- 
ness, 

Of  folded  hands,  closed  eyes,  and  heart 
at  rest, 

And  slumber  sound  beneath  a  flowery 
turf, 

Of  faults  forgotten,  and  an  inner  place 
Kept  sacred  for   us  in  the  heart  of 
friends ; 

But  these  were  idle  fancies,  satisfied 
With  the  mere  husk  of  this  great  mys- 
tery, 

And  dwelling  in  the  outward  shows  of 
things. 

Heaven  is  not  mounted  to  on  wings  of 
dreams, 

Nor  doth  the  unthankful  happiness  of 
youth 

Aim  thitherward,  but  floats  from  bloom 
to  bloom, 

With  earth's  warm  patch  of  sunshine 

well  content: 
'T  is  sorrow  builds  the  shining  ladder  up, 
Whose  golden  rounds  are  our  calamities, 
Whereon  our  firm  feet  planting,  nearer 

God 

The  spirit  climbs,  and  hath  its  eyes  un- 
sealed. 

True  is  it  that  Death's  face  seems  stern 
and  cold, 

When  he  is  sent  to  summon  those  we 
love, 

But  all  God's  angels  come  to  us  dis- 
guised ; 

Sorrow  and  sickness,  poverty  and  death, 
One  after  other  lift    their  frowning 
masks, 

And  we  behold  the  seraph's  face  beneath, 
All  radiant  with  the  glory  and  the  calm 
Of  having  looked  upon  the  front  of  God. 
With  every  anguish  of  our  earthly  part 
The  spirit's  sight  grows  clearer ;  this  was 
meant 

When  Jesus  touched  the  blind  man's 

lids  with  clay. 
Life  is  the  jailer,  Death  the  angel  sent 
To  draw  the  unwilling  bolts  and  set  us 

free. 

He  flings  not  ope  the  ivory  gate  of 
Rest,  — 

Only  the  fallen  spirit  knocks  at  that,  — 
But  to  benigner  regions  beckons  us, 
To  destinies  of  more  rewarded  toil. 
In  the  hushed  chamber,  sitting  by  the 
dead, 

It  grates  on  us  to  hear  the  flood  of  life 


Whirl  rustling  onward,  senseless  of  our 
loss. 

The  bee  hums  on ;  around  the  blossomed 
vine 

Whirs  the  light  humming-bird;  the 

cricket  chirps ; 
The  locust's  shrill  alarum  stings  the 

ear ; 

Hard  by,  the  cock  shouts  lustily ;  from 

farm  to  farm, 
His  cheery  brothers,  telling  of  the  sun, 
Answer,  till  far  away  the  joyance  dies  : 
We  never  knew  before  how  God  had 

filled 

The  summer  air   with  happy  living 
sounds ; 

All  round  us  seems  an  overplus  of  life, 
And  yet  the  one  dear  heart  lies  cold  and 
still. 

It  is  most  strange,  when  the  great  mir- 
acle 

Hath  for  our  sakes  been  done,  when  we 

have  had 
Our  inwardest  experience  of  God, 
When  with  his  presence  still  the  room 

expands, 

And  is  awed  after  him,  that  naught  is 
changed, 

That  Nature's  face  looks  unacknowl- 
edging, 

And  the  mad  world  still  dances  heedless 
on 

After  its  butterflies,  and  gives  no  sign. 
'T  is  hard  at  first  to  see  it  all  aright: 
In  vain  Faith  blows  her  trump  to  sum- 
mon back 

Her  scattered  troop  :  yet,  through  the 

clouded  glass 
Of  our  own  bitter  tears,  we  learn  to  look 
Undazzled  on  the  kindness  of  God's 

face ; 

Earth  is  too  dark,  and  Heaven  alone 
shines  through. 

It  is  no  little  thing,  when  a  fresh  soul 
And  a  fresh  heart,  with  their  unmeas- 
ured scope 
For  good,  not  gravitating  earthward  yet, 
But  circling  in  diviner  periods, 
Are  sent  into  the  world,  —  no  little 
thing, 

When  this  unbounded  possibility 
Into  the  outer  silence  is  withdrawn. 
Ah,  in  this  world,  where  every  guiding 
thread 

Ends  suddenly  in  the  one  sure  centre, 
death, 


EURTDICE. 


89 


The  visionary  hand  of  Might-have-been 
Alone  can  fill  Desire's  cup  to  the  brim  ! 

How  changed,  dear  friend,  are  thy  part 

and  thy  child's ! 
He  bends  above  thy  cradle  now,  or  holds 
His  warning  finger  out  to  be  thy  guide ; 
Thou  art  the  nursling  now ;  he  watches 

thee 

Slow  learning,  one  by  one,  the  secret 
things 

Which  are  to  him  used  sights  of  every 
day; 

He  smiles  to  see  thy  wondering  glances 
con 

The  grass  and  pebbles  of  the  spirit- 
world, 

To  thee  miraculous  ;  and  he  will  teach 
Thy  knees  their  due  observances  of 
prayer. 

Children  are  God's  apostles,  day  by  day 
Sent  forth  to  preach  of  love,  and  hope, 

and  peace  ; 
Nor  hath  thy  babe  his  mission  left  un- 
done. 

To  me,  at  least,  his  going  hence  hath 
given 

Serener  thoughts  and  nearer  to  the  skies, 
And  opened  a  new  fountain  in  my  heart 
For  thee,  my  friend,  and  all :  and  0,  if 
Death 

More  near  approaches  meditates,  and 
clasps 

Even  now  some  dearer,  more  reluctant 
hand, 

God,  strengthen  thou  my  faith,  that  I 
may  see 

That 't  is  thine  angel,  who,  with  loving 
haste, 

Unto  the  service  of  the  inner  shrine, 
Doth  waken  thy  beloved  with  a  kiss. 


ETJRYDICE. 

Heaven's  cup  held  down  to  me  I 
drain, 

The  sunshine  mounts  and  spurs  my 
brain  ; 

Bathing  in  grass,  with  thirsty  eye 
I  suck  the  last  drop  of  the  sky  ; 
With  each  hot  sense  I  draw  to  the  lees 
The  quickening  out-door  influences, 
And  empty  to  each  radiant  comer 
A  supernaculum  of  summer : 
Not,  Bacchus,  all  thy  grosser  juice 
Could  bring  enchantment  so  profuse, 


Though  for  its  press  each  grape-bunch  had 
The  white  feet  of  an  Oread. 

Through  our  coarse  art  gleam,  now  and 
then, 

The  features  of  angelic  men  : 
'Neath  the  lewd  Satyr's  veiling  paint 
Glows  forth  the  Sibyl,  Muse,  or  Saint ; 
The  dauber's  botch  no  more  obscures 
The  mighty  master's  portraitures. 
And  who  can  say  what  luckier  beam 
The  hidden  glory  shall  redeem, 
For  what  chance  clod  the  soul  may  wait 
To  stumble  on  its  nobler  fate, 
Or  why,  to  his  unwarned  abode, 
Still  by  surprises  comes  the  God  ? 
Some  moment,  nailed  on  sorrow's  cross, 
May  meditate  a  whole  youth's  loss, 
Some  windfall  joy,  we  know  not  whence, 
Redeem  a  lifetime's  rash  expense, 
And,  suddenly  wise,  the  soul  may  mark, 
Stripped  of  their  simulated  dark, 
Mountains  of  gold  that  pierce  the  sky, 
Girdling  its  valleyed  poverty. 

I  feel  ye,  childhood's  hopes,  return* 
With  olden  heats  my  pulses  burn,  — 
Mine  be  the  self-forgetting  sweep, 
The  torrent  impulse  swift  and  wild, 
Wherewith  Taghkanic's  rockborn  child 
Dares  gloriously  the  dangerous  leap, 
And,  in  his  sky-descended  mood, 
Transmutes  each  drop  of  sluggish  blood, 
By  touch  of  bravery's  simple  wand, 
To  amethyst  and  diamond, 
Proving  himself  no  bastard  slip, 
But  the  true  granite-cradled  one, 
Nursed  with  the  rock's  primeval  drip, 
The  cloud- embracing  mountain's  son  ! 

Prayer  breathed  in  vain  !  no  wish's  sway 
Rebuilds  the  vanished  yesterday  ; 
For  plated  wares  of  Sheffield  stamp 
We  gave  the  old  Aladdin's  lamp  ; 
'T  is  we  are  changed  ;  ah,  whither  went 
That  undesigned  abandonment, 
That  wise,  unquestioning  content, 
Which  could  erect  its  microcosm 
Out  of  a  weed's  neglected  blossom, 
Could  call  up  Arthur  and  his  peers 
By  a  low  moss's  clump  of  spears, 
Or,  in  its  shingle  trireme  launched, 
Where    Charles  in  some   green  inlet 

branched, 
Could  venture  for  the  golden  fleece 
And  dragon-watched  Hesperides, 
Or,  from  its  ripple-shattered  fate, 


90 


MISCELLANEOUS  POEMS. 


Ulysses'  chances  re-create  ? 
When,  heralding  life's  every  phase, 
There  glowed  a  goddess-veiling  haze, 
A  plenteous,  forewarning  grace, 
Like  that  more  tender  dawn  that  flies 
Before  the  full  moon's  ample  rise  ? 
Methinks  thy  parting  glory  shines 
Through  yonder  grove  of  singing  pines  ; 
At  that  elm- vista's  end  I  trace 
Dimly  thy  sad  leave-taking  face, 
Eurydice  !  Eurydice  ! 
The  tremulous  leaves  repeat  to  me 
Eurydice  !  Eurydice  ! 
No  gloomier  Orcus  swallows  thee 
Than  the  unclouded  suuset's  glow  ; 
Thine  is  at  least  Elysian  woe  ; 
Thou  hast  Good's  natural  decay, 
And  fadest  like  a  star  away 
Into  an  atmosphere  whose  shine 
With  fuller  day  o'erm asters  thine, 
Entering  defeat  as 't  were  a  shrine  ; 
For  us,  —  we  turn  life's  diary  o'er 
To  find  but  one  word,  —  Nevermore. 


SHE  CAME  AND  WENT. 

As  a  twig  trembles,  which  a  bird 

Lights  on  to  sing,  then  leaves  unbent, 

So  is  my  memory  thrilled  and  stirred;  — 
I  only  know  she  came  and  went. 

As  clasps  some  lake,  by  gusts  unriven, 
The  blue  dome's  measureless  content, 

So  my  soul  held  that  moment's  heaven ;  — 
I  only  know  she  came  and  went. 

As,  at  one  bound,  our  swift  spring  heaps 
The  orchards  full  of  bloom  and  scent, 

So  clove  her  May  my  wintry  sleeps  ;  — 
I  only  know  she  came  and  went. 

An  angel  stood  and  met  my  gaze, 

Through  the  lowr  doonvay  of  my  tent ; 

The  tent  is  struck,  the  vision  stays  ;  — 
1  only  know  she  came  and  went. 

O,  when  the  room  grows  slowly  dim, 
And  life's  last  oil  is  nearly  spent, 

One  gush  of  light  these  eyes  will  brim, 
Only  to  think  she  came  and  went. 

THE  CHANGELING. 

I  had  a  little  daughter, 

And  she  was  given  to  me 
To  lead  me  gently  backward 

To  the  Heavenly  Father's  knee, 


That  I,  by  the  force  of  nature, 
Might  in  some  dim  wise  divine 

The  depth  of  his  infinite  patience 
To  this  wayward  soul  of  mine. 

I  know  not  how  others  saw  her, 

But  to  me  she  was  wholly  fair, 
And  the  light  of  the  heaven  she  came 
from 

Still  lingered  and  gleamed  in  her  hair ; 
For  it  was  as  wravy  and  golden, 

And  as  many  changes  took, 
As  the  shadows  of  sun-gilt  ripples 

On  the  yellow  bed  of  a  brook. 

To  wThat  can  I  liken  her  smiling 

Upon  me,  her  kneeling  lover, 
How  it  leaped  from  her  lips  to  her  eye- 
lids, 

And  dimpled  her  wholly  over, 
Till  her  outstretched  hands  smiled  also, 

And  I  almost  seemed  to  see 
The  very  heart  of  her  mother 

Sending  sun  through  her  veins  to  me  ! 

She  had  been  wTith  us  scarce  a  twelve- 
month, 

And  it  hardly  seemed  a  day, 
When  a  troop  of  wandering  angels 

Stole  my  little  daughter  away ; 
Or  perhaps  those  heavenly  Zingari 

But  loosed  the  hampering  strings, 
And  when  they  had  opened  her  cage- 
door, 

My  little  bird  used  her  wings. 

But  they  left  in  her  stead  a  changeling, 

A  little  angel  child, 
That  seems  like  her  bud  in  full  blossom, 

And  smiles  as  she  never  smiled  : 
When  I  wake  in  the  morning,  I  see  it 

Where  she  always  used  to  lie, 
And  I  feel  as  weak  as  a  violet 

Alone  'neath  the  awful  sky. 

As  wreak,  yet  as  trustful  also  ; 

For  the  whole  year  long  I  see 
All  the  wonders  of  faithful  Nature 

Still  worked  for  the  love  of  me  ; 
Winds  wander,  and  dews  drip  earthward, 

Eain  falls,  suns  rise  and  set, 
Earth  whirls,  and  all  but  to  prosper 

A  poor  little  violet. 

This  child  is  not  mine  as  the  first  was, 

I  cannot  sing  it  to  rest, 
I  cannot  lift  it  up  fatherly 

And  bliss  it  upon  my  breast ; 


THE  PIONEER. 


91 


Yet  it  lies  in  my  little  one's  cradle 
And  sits  in  my  little  one's  chair, 

And  the  light  of  the  heaven  she  's  gone  to 
Transfigures  its  golden  hair. 


THE  PIONEER. 

"What  man  would  live  coffined  with 
brick  and  stone, 
Imprisoned  from  the  influences  of  air, 
And  cramped  with  selfish  landmarks 
everywhere, 
When  all  before  him  stretches,  furrow- 
less  and  lone, 
The  unmapped  prairie  none  can  fence 
or  own  ? 

"What  man  would  read  and  read  the 
selfsame  faces, 
And,  like  the  marbles  which  the 

windmill  grinds, 
Rub  smooth  forever  with  the  same 
smooth  minds, 
This  year  retracing  last  year's,  every 
year's,  dull  traces, 
When  there  are  woods  and  un-man- 
stifled  places? 

What  man  o'er  one  old  thought  would 
pore  and  pore, 
Shut  like  a  book  between  its  covers 
thin 

For  every  fool  to  leave  his  dog's- 
ears  in, 

When  solitude  is  his,  and  God  forever- 
more, 

Just  for  the  opening  of  a  paltry  door? 

What  man  would  watch  life's  oozy 
element 

Creep  Letheward  forever,  when  lie 
might 

Down  some  great  river  drift  beyond 
men's  sight, 
To  where  the  undethroned  forest's  royal 
tent 

Broods  with  its  hush  o'er  half  a  con- 
tinent ? 

What  man  with  men  would  push  and 

altercate, 
Piecing   out   crooked   means  for 

crooked  ends, 
When  he  can  have  the  skies  and 

woods  for  friends, 


Snatch  back  the  rudder  of  his  undis- 
mantled  fate, 
And  in  himself  be  ruler,  church,  and 
state? 

Cast  leaves  and  feathers  rot  in  last 

year's  nest, 
The  winged  brood,  flown  thence, 

new  dwellings  plan  ; 
The  serf  of  his  own  Past  is  not  a 

man; 

To  change  and  change  is  life,  to  move 
and  never  rest ;  — 
Not  what  we  are,  but  what  we  hope, 
is  best. 

The  wild,  free  woods  make  no  man 
halt  or  blind; 
Cities  rob  men  of  eyes  and  hands 
and  feet, 

Patching  one  whole  of  many  incom- 
plete ; 

The  general  preys  upon  the  individual 
mind, 

And  each  alone  is  helpless  as  the  wind. 

Each  man  is  some  man's  servant; 
every  soul 
Is  by  some  other's  presence  quite 

discrowned ; 
Each  owes  the  next  through  all  the 
imperfect  round, 
Yet  not  with  mutual  help ;  each  man  is 
his  own  goal, 
And  the  whole  earth  must  stop  to  pay 
his  toll. 

Here,  life  the  undiminished  man  de- 
mands ; 

New  faculties  stretch  out  to  meet 

new  wants ; 
What  Nature  asks,  that  Nature  also 

grants ; 

Here  man  is  lord,  not  drudge,  of  eyes 
and  feet  and  hands, 
And  to  his  life  is  knit  with  hourly 
bands. 

Come  out,  then,  from  the  old  thoughts 
and  old  ways, 
Before  you  harden  to  a  crystal  cold 
Which  the  new  life  can  shatter,  but 
not  mould ; 
Freedom  for  you  still  waits,  still,  look- 
ing backward,  stays, 
But  widens   still  the  irretrievable 
space. 


92 


MISCELLANEOUS  POEMS. 


LONGING. 

Of  all  the  myriad  moods  of  mind 

That  through  the  soul  come  thronging, 
Which  one  was  e'er  so  dear,  so  kind, 

So  beautiful  as  Longing  ? 
The  thing  we  long  for,  that  we  are 

For  one  transcendent  moment, 
Before  the  Present  poor  and  bare 

Can  make  its  sneering  comment. 

Still,  through  our  paltry  stir  and  strife, 

Glows  down  the  wished  Ideal, 
And  Longing  moulds  in  clay  what  Life 

Carves  in  the  marble  Real ; 
To  let  the  new  life  in,  we  know, 

Desire  must  ope  the  portal ;  — 
Perhaps  the  longing  to  be  so 

Helps  make  the  soul  immortal. 

Longing  is  God's  fresh  heavenward  will 
With  our  poor  earthward  striving; 

We  quench  it  that  we  may  be  still 
Content  with  merely  living ; 

But,  would  we  learn  that  heart's  full 
scope 

Which  we  are  hourly  wronging, 
Our  lives  must  climb  from  hope  to  hope 
And  realize  our  longing. 

Ah  !  let  us  hope  that  to  our  praise 

Good  God  not  only  reckons 
The  moments  when  we  tread  his  ways, 

But  when  the  spirit  beckons,  — 
That  some  slight  good  is  also  wrought 

Beyond  self-satisfaction, 
When  we  are  simply  good  in  thought, 

Howe'er  we  fail  in  action. 


ODE  TO  FRANCE. 

FEBRUARY,  1848. 
I. 

As,  flake  by  flake,  the  beetling  ava- 
lanches 

Build  up  their  imminent  crags  of 
noiseless  snow, 
Till  some  chance  thrill  the  loosened  ruin 
launches 

And  the  blind  havoc  leaps  unwarned 
below, 

So  grew  and  gathered  through  the  silent 
years 

The  madness  of  a  People,  wrong  by 
wrong. 


There  seemed  no  strength  in  the  dumb 
toiler's  tears, 
No  strength  in  suffering ;  but  the  Past 
was  strong : 
The  brute  despair  of  trampled  centuries 
Leaped  up  with  one  hoarse  yell  and 

snapped  its  bands, 
Groped  for  its  right  with  horny,  cal- 
lous hands, 
And  stared  around  for  God  with  blood- 
shot eyes. 
What  wonder  if  those  palms  were  all 
too  hard 

For  nice  distinctions, — if  that  msenad 
throng — 

They  whose  thick  atmosphere  no  bard 
Had  shivered  with  the  lightning  of  his 
song, 

Brutes  with  the  memories  and  desires 
of  men, 

Whose  chronicles  were  writ  with  iron 
pen, 

In  the  crooked  shoulder  and  the 
forehead  low, 
Set  wrong  to  balance  wrong, 
And  physicked  woe  with  woe  ? 

it. 

They  did  as  they  were  taught ;  not  theirs 

the  blame, 
If  men  who  scattered  firebrands  reaped 
the  flame : 
They  trampled  Peace  beneath  their 
savage  feet, 
And  by  her  golden  tresses  drew 
Mercy  along  the  pavement  of  the 
street. 

0  Freedom !  Freedom !  is  thy  morning- 
dew 

So  gory  red?   Alas,  thy  light  had 
ne'er 

Shone  in  upon  the  chaos  of  their 
lair ! 

They  reared  to  thee  such  symbol  as  they 
knew, 

And  worshipped  it  with  flame  and 
blood, 

A  Vengeance,  axe  in  hand,  that 
stood 

Holding  a  tyrant's  head  up  by  the  clot- 
ted hair. 

in. 

What  wrongs  the  Oppressor  suffered, 
these  we  know ; 
These  have  found  piteous  voice  in  song 
and  prose ; 


ODE  TO 

But  for  the  Oppressed,  their  darkness 

and  their  woe, 
Their  grinding  centuries,  — what  Muse 

had  those  ? 
Though  hall  and  palace  had  nor  eyes 

nor  ears, 

Hardening  a  people's  heart  to  senseless 
stone, 

Thou  knewest  them,  O  Earth,  that 
drank  their  tears, 
0  Heaven,  that  heard  their  inarticu- 
late moan  ! 

They  noted  down  their  fetters,  link  by 
link  ; 

Coarse  was  the  hand  that  scrawled,  and 
red  the  ink  ; 
Rude  was  their  score,  as  suits  unlet- 
tered men, 

Notched  with  a  headsman's  axe  upon 
a  block : 

"What  marvel  if,  when  came  the  aveng- 
ing shock, 
'Twas  Ate,  not  Urania,  held  the 
pen  ? 

IV. 

With  eye  averted,  and  an  anguished 
frown, 

Loathingly  glides  the  Muse  through 
scenes  of  strife, 
Where,  like  the  heart  of  Vengeance  up 
and  down, 
Throbs  in  its  framework  the  blood- 
muffled  knife  ; 
Slow  are  the  steps  of  Freedom,  but  her 
feet 

Turn  never  backward  :  hers  no  bloody 
glare  ; 

Her  light  is  calm,  and  innocent,  and 
sweet, 

And  where  it  enters  there  is  no  de- 
spair : 

Not  first  on  palace  and  cathedral  spire 
Quivers  and  gleams  that  unconsuming 
fire  ; 

While  these  stand  black  against  her 
morning  skies, 
The  peasant  sees  it  leap  from  peak  to 
peak 

Along  his  hills  ;  the  craftsman's  burn- 
ing eyes 

Own  with  cool  tears  its  influence  mother- 
meek  ; 

It  lights  the  poet's  heart  up  like  a 
star  ; 

Ah  !  while  the  tyrant  deemed  it  still 
afar, 


FRANCE.  93 

And  twined  with  golden  threads  his 
futile  snare, 
That  swift,  convicting  glow  all  round 
him  ran  ; 
'T  was  close  beside  him  there, 
Sunrise  whose  Memnon  is  the  soul  of 
man. 

v. 

0  Broker-King,  is  this  thy  wisdom's 
fruit  ? 

A  dynasty  plucked  out  as  'twere  a 
weed 

Grown  rankly  in  a  night,  that  leaves 
no  seed ! 

Could  eighteen  years  strike  down  no 

deeper  root  ? 
But  now  thy  vulture  eye  was  turned 

on  Spain,  — 
A  shout  from  Paris,  and  thy  crown  falls 

off, 

Thy  race  has  ceased  to  reign, 
And  thou  become  a  fugitive  and  scoff : 
Slippery  the  feet  that  mount  by  stairs 
of  gold, 

And  weakest  of  all  fences  one  of  steel ;  — 
Go  and  keep  school  again  like  him  of 
old, 

The  Syracusan  tyrant ;  —  thou  mayst 
feel 

Royal  amid  a  birch-swayed  commonweal ! 

VI. 

Not  long  can  he  be  ruler  who  allows 
His  time  to  run  before  him ;  thou 
wast  naught 
Soon  as  the  strip  of  gold  about  thy  brows 
Was  no  more  emblem  of  the  People's 
thought : 

Vain  were  thy  bayonets  against  the  foe 
Thou  hadst  to  cope  with  ;  thou  didst 
wage 

War  not  with  Frenchmen  merely  ;  — no, 
Thy  strife  was  with  the  Spirit  of  the 
Age, 

The  invisible  Spirit  whose  first  breath 
divine 

Scattered  thy  frail  endeavor, 
And,   like   poor   last   year's  leaves, 
whirled  thee  and  thine 
Into  the  Dark  forever  ! 

VII. 

Is  here  no  triumph  ?   Nay,  what 
though 

The  yellow  blood  of  Trade  meanwhile 
should  pour 


94 


MISCELLANEOUS  POEMS. 


Along  its  arteries  a  shrunken  flow, 
And  the  idle  canvas  droop  around  the 
shore  ? 

These  do  not  make  a  state, 
Nor  keep  it  great ; 
I  think  God  made 
The  earth  for  man,  not  trade ; 
And  where  each  humblest  human  crea- 
ture 

Can  stand,  no  more  suspicious  or  afraid, 
Erect  and  kingly  in  his  right  of  nature, 
To  heaven  and  earth  knit  with  harmo- 
nious ties,  — 
Where  I  behold  the  exultation 
Of  manhood  glowing  in  those  eyes 
That  had  been  dark  for  ages, 
Or  only  lit  with  bestial  loves  and 
rages, 

There  I  behold  a  Nation  : 

The  France  which  lies 
Between  the  Pyrenees  and  Rhine 
Is  the  least  part  of  France  ; 
I  see  her  rather  in  the  soul  whose  shine 
Burns  through  the  craftsman's  grimy 
countenance, 
In  the  new  energy  divine 
Of  Toil's  enfranchised  glance. 

VIII. 

And  if  it  be  a  dream,  — 
If  the  great  Future  be  the  little  Past 
'Neath  a  new  mask,  which  drops  and 

shows  at  last 
The  same  weird,  mocking  face  to  balk 
and  blast,  — 
Yet,  Muse,  a  gladder  measure  suits  the 
theme, 
And  the  Tyrtsean  harp 
Loves  notes  more  resolute  and 
sharp, 

Throbbing,  as  throbs  the  bosom,  hot 
and  fast : 
Such  visions  are  of  morning, 
Theirs  is  no  vague  forewarning, 
The  dreams  which  nations  dream  come 
true, 

And  shape  the  world  anew  ; 
If  this  be  a  sleep, 
Make  it  long,  make  it  deep, 
0  Father,  who  sendest  the  harvests  men 
reap  ! 

While  Labor  so  sleepeth, 

His  sorrow  is  gone, 
No  longer  he  weepeth, 
But  smileth  and  steepeth 

His  thoughts  in  the  dawn  ; 
He  heareth  Hope  yonder 


Rain,  lark-like,  her  fancies, 

His  dreaming  hands  wander 

Mid  hearts-ease  and  pansies  ; 
"  'T  is  a  dream  !  'T  is  a  vision  !" 

Shrieks  Mammon  aghast ; 
"  The  day's  broad  derision 

Will  chase  it  at  last ; 
Ye  are  mad,  ye  have  taken 
A  slumbering  krakeu 

For  firm  land  of  the  Past !  " 
Ah  !  if  he  awaken, 

God  shield  us  all  then, 
If  this  dream  rudely  shaken 
Shall  cheat  him  again  ! 

IX. 

Since  first  I  heard  our  North-wind 
blow, 

Since  first  I  saw  Atlantic  throw 
On  our  fierce  rocks  his  thunderous 
snow, 

I  loved  thee,  Freedom  ;  as  a  boy 
The  rattle  of  thy  shield  at  Marathon 
Did  with  a  Grecian  joy 
Through  all  my  pulses  run  ; 
But  I  have  learned  to  love  thee  now 
Without  the  helm  upon  thy  gleaming 
brow, 

A  maiden  mild  and  undefiled 
Like  her  who  bore  the  world's  redeem- 
ing child ; 
And  surely  never  did  thine  altars 

glance 

With  purer  fires  than  now  in  France ; 
While,  in  their  bright  white  flashes, 
Wrong's  shadow,  backward  cast, 
Waves  cowering  o'er  the  ashes 

Of  the  dead,  blaspheming  Past, 
O'er  the  shapes  of  fallen  giants, 
His  own  unburied  brood, 
Whose  dead  hands  clench  defiance 

At  the  overpowering  Good  : 
And  down  the  happy  future  runs  a  flood 

Of  prophesying  light ; 
It  shows  an  Earth  no  longer  stained 

with  blood, 
Blossom  and  fruit  where  now  we  see  the 
bud 

Of  Brotherhood  and  Right. 


ANTI-APIS. 

Praisest  Law,  friend  ?  We,  too,  love  it 
much  as  they  that  love  it  best  ; 

'T  is  the  deep,  august  foundation,  where- 
on Peace  and  Justice  rest ; 


ANTI- 

On  the  rock  primeval,  hidden  in  the 

Past  its  bases  be, 
Block  by  block  the  endeavoring  Ages 

built  it  up  to  what  we  see. 

But  dig  down :  the  Old  unbury  ;  thou 

shalt  find  on  every  stone 
That  each  Age  hath  carved  the  symbol 

of  what  god  to  them  was  known. 
Ugly  shapes  and  brutish  sometimes,  but 

the  fairest  that  they  knew  ; 
If  their  sight  were  dim  and  earthward, 

yet  their  hope  and  aim  were  true. 

Surely  as  the  unconscious  needle  feels 
the  far-off  loadstar  draw, 

So  strives  every  gracious  nature  to  at- 
one itself  with  law ; 

And  the  elder  Saints  and  Sages  laid  their 
pious  framework  right 

By  a  theocratic  instinct  covered  from  the 
people's  sight. 

As  their  gods  were,  so  their  laws  were  ; 
Thor  the  strong  could  reave  and 
steal, 

So  through  many  a  peaceful  inlet  tore  the 

Norseman's  eager  keel ; 
But  a  new  law  came  when  Christ  came, 

and  not  blameless,  as  before, 
Can  we,  paying  him  our  lip-tithes,  give 

our  lives  and  faiths  to  Thor. 

Law  is  holy  :  ay,  but  what  law  ?  Is  there 
nothing  more  divine 

Than  the  patched-up  broils  of  Congress, 
—  venal,  full  of  meat  and  wine  ? 

Is  there,  say  you,  nothing  higher  ? 
Naught,  God  save  us  !  that  tran- 
scends 

Laws  of  cotton  texture,  wove  by  vulgar 
men  for  vulgar  ends  ? 

Did  Jehovah  ask  their  counsel,  or  sub- 
mit to  them  a  plan, 

Ere  he  filled  with  loves,  hopes,  longings, 
this  aspiring  heart  of  man  ? 

For  their  edict  does  the  soul  wait,  ere  it 
swing  round  to  the  pole 

Of  the  true,  the  free,  the  God- willed,  all 
that  makes  it  be  a  soul  ? 

Law  is  holy  ;  but  not  your  law,  ye  who 

keep  the  tablets  whole 
'  While  ye  dash  the  Law  to  pieces,  shatter 

it  in  life  and  soul ; 


•apis.  95 

Bearing  up  the  Ark  is  lightsome,  golden 

Apis  hid  within, 
While  we  Levites  share  the  offerings, 
richer  by  the  people's  sin. 

Give  to  Csesar  what  is  Cesar's  ?  yes,  but 

tell  me,  if  you  can, 
Is  this  superscription  Csesar's  here  upon 

our  brother  man  ? 
Is  not  here  some  other's  image,  dark  and 

sullied  though  it  be, 
In  this  fellow-soul  that  worships,  strug- 
gles Godward  even  as  we  ? 

It  was  not  to  such  a  future  that  the  May- 
flower's prow  was  turned  ; 
Not  to  such  a  faith  the  martyrs  clung, 

exulting  as  they  burned ; 
Not  by  such  laws  are  men  fashioned, 

earnest,  simple,  valiant,  great 
In  the  household  virtues  whereon  rests 
the  unconquerable  state. 

Ah  !  there  is  a  higher  gospel,  overhead 

the  God-roof  springs, 
And  each  glad,  obedient  planet  like  a 

golden  shuttle  sings 
Through  the  web  which  Time  is  weaving 

in  his  never-resting  loom, — 
Weaving  seasons  many-colored,  bringing 
prophecy  to  doom. 

Think  you  Truth  a  farthing  rushlight, 

to  be  pinched  out  when  you  will 
With  your  deft  official  fingers,  and  your 

politicians'  skill  ? 
Is  your  God  a  wooden  fetish,  to  be  hid- 
den out  of  sight 
That  his  block  eyes  may  not  see  you  do 
the  thing  that  is  not  right  ? 

But  the  Destinies  think  not  so ;  to  their 

judgment-chamber  lone 
Comes  no  noise  of  popular  clamor,  there 

Fame's  trumpet  is  not  blown  ; 
Your  majorities  they  reck  not;  —  that 

you  grant,  but  then  you  say 
That  you  differ  with  them  somewhat, — 
which  is  stronger,  you  or  they  ? 

Patient  are  they  as  the  insects  that  build 

islands  in  the  deep  ; 
They  hurl  not  the  bolted  thunder,  but 
their  silent  way  they  keep ; 


96 


MISCELLANEOUS  POEMS. 


"Where  they  have  been  that  we  know  ; 
where  empires  towered  that  were  not 
just ; 

Lo !  the  skulking  wild  fox  scratches  in  a 
little  heap  of  dust. 

1851. 

A  PARABLE. 

Said  Christ  our  Lord,  "I  will  go  and  see 
How  the  men,  my  brethren,  believe  in 
me." 

He  passed  not  again  through  the  gate  of 
birth, 

But  made  himself  known  to  the  children 
of  earth. 

Then  said  the  chief  priests,  and  rulers, 

and  kings, 
"  Behold,  now,  the  Giver  of  all  good 

things ; 

Go  to,  let  us  welcome  with  pomp  and 
state 

Him  who  alone  is  mighty  and  great." 

With  carpets  of  gold  the  ground  they 
spread 

Wherever  the  Son  of  Man  should  tread, 
And  in  palace-chambers  lofty  and  rare 
They  lodged  him,  and  served  him  with 
kingly  fare. 

Great  organs  surged  through  arches  dim 
Their  jubilant  floods  in  praise  of  him  ; 
And  in  church,  and  palace,  and  judg- 
ment-hall, 
He  saw  his  image  high  over  all. 

But  still,  wherever  his  steps  they  led, 
The  Lord  in  sorrow  bent  down  his  head, 
And  from  under  the  heavy  foundation- 
stones, 

The  son  of  Mary  heard  bitter  groans. 

And  in  church,  and  palace,  and  judg- 
ment-hall, 

He  marked  great  fissures  that  rent  the 
wall, 

And  opened  wider  and  yet  more  wide 
As  the  living  foundation  heaved  and 
sighed. 

"  Have  ye  founded  your  thrones  and 

altars,  then, 
On  the  bodies  and  souls  of  living  men  ? 
And  think  ye  that  building  shall  endure, 
Which  shelters  the  noble  and  crushes  the 

poor? 


' '  With  gates  of  silver  and  bars  of  gold 
Ye  have  fenced  my  sheep  from  their 

Father's  fold ; 
I  have  heard  the  dropping  of  their  tears 
In  heaven  these  eighteen  hundred  years." 

"  0  Lord  and  Master,  not  ours  the  guilt, 
We  build  but  as  our  fathers  built ; 
Behold  thine  images,  how  they  stand, 
Sovereign  and  sole,  through  all  our  land. 

"Our  task  is  hard, —  with  sword  and 
flame 

To  hold  thine  earth  forever  the  same, 
And  with  sharp  crooks  of  steel  to  keep 
Still,  as  thou  leftest  them,  thy  sheep." 

Then  Christ  sought  out  an  artisan, 
A  low-browed,  stunted,  haggard  man, 
And  a  motherless  girl,  whose  fingers  thin 
Pushed  from  her  faintly  want  and  sin. 

These  set  he  in  the  midst  of  them, 
And  as  they  drew  back  their  garment- 
hem, 

For  fear  of  defilement,  "  Lo,  here,"  said 
he, 

"  The  images  ye  have  made  of  me  !" 


ODE 

WRITTEN  FOR  THE  CELEBRATION  OP 
THE  INTRODUCTION  OF  THE  COCHIT- 
UATE  WATER  INTO  THE  CITY  OF 
BOSTON. 

My  name  is  Water  :  I  have  sped 

Through  strange,  dark  ways,  untried 
before, 

By  pure  desire  of  friendship  led, 

Cochituate's  ambassador ; 
He  sends  four  royal  gifts  by  me : 
Long  life,  health,  peace,  and  purity. 

I 'm  Ceres'  cup-bearer  ;  I  pour, 

For  flowers  and  fruits  and  all  their  kin, 

Her  crystal  vintage,  from  of  yore 
Stored  in  old  Earth's  selectest  bin, 

Flora's  Falernian  ripe,  since  God 

The  wine-press  of  the  deluge  trod. 

In  that  far  isle  whence,  iron-willed, 
The  New  World's  sires  their  bark 
unmoored, 

The  fairies'  acorn-cups  I  filled 
Upon  the  toadstool's  silver  board, 


LINES. 


97 


And,  'neath  Heme's  oak,  for  Shake- 
speare's sight, 

Strewed  moss  and  grass  with  diamonds 
bright. 

No  fairies  in  the  Mayflower  came, 
And,  lightsome  as  I  sparkle  here, 

For  Mother  Bay  State,  busy  dame, 
I  've  toiled  and  drudged  this  many  a 
year, 

Throbbed  in  her  engines'  iron  veins, 
Twirled  myriad  spindles  for  her  gains. 

I,  too,  can  weave  :  the  warp  I  set 

Through  which  the  sun  his  shuttle 
throws, 

And,  bright  as  Noah  saw  it,  yet 

For  you  the  arching  rainbow  glows, 
A  sight  in  Paradise  denied 
To  unfallen  Adam  and  his  bride. 

"When  Winter  held  me  in  his  grip, 
You  seized  and  sent  me  o'er  the  wave, 

Ungrateful !  in  a  prison-ship  ; 
But  I  forgive,  not  long  a  slave, 

For,  soon  as  ^summer  south-winds  blew, 

Homeward  I  fled,  disguised  as  dew. 

For  countless  services  I 'm  fit, 
Of  use,  of  pleasure,  and  of  gain, 

But  lightly  from  all  bonds  I  flit, 
Nor  lose  my  mirth,  nor  feel  a  stain  ; 

From  mill  and  wash-tub  I  escape, 

And  take  in  heaven  my  proper  shape. 

So,  free  myself,  to-day,  elate 

I  come  from  far  o'er  hill  and  mead, 

And  here,  Cochituate's  envoy,  wait 
To  be  your  blithesome  Ganymede, 

And  brim  your  cups  with  nectar  true 

That  never  will  make  slaves  of  you. 


LINES 

SUGGESTED  BY  THE  GRAVES  OF  TWO 
ENGLISH  SOLDIERS  ON  CONCORD 
BATTLE-GROUND. 

The  same  good  blood  that  now  refills 
The  dotard  Orient's  shrunken  veins, 
The  same  whose  vigor  westward  thrills, 
Bursting  Nevada's  silver  chains, 
Poured  here  upon  the  April  grass, 
Freckled  with  red  the  herbage  new  ; 
On  reeled  the  battle's  trampling  mass, 
Back  to  the  ash  the  bluebird  flew. 

7 


Poured  here  in  vain ;  —  that  sturdy  blood 
Was  meant  to  make  the  earth  more 
green, 

But  in  a  higher,  gentler  mood 
Than  broke  this  April  noon  serene  ; 
Two  graves  are  here  :  to  mark  the  place, 
At  head  and  foot,  an  unhewn  stone, 
O'er  which  the  herald  lichens  trace 
The  blazon  of  Oblivion. 

These  men  were  brave  enough,  and  true 
To  the  hired  soldier's  bull-dog  creed  ; 
What  brought  them  here  they  never 
knew, 

They  fought  as  suits  the  English  breed  : 
They  came  three  thousand  miles,  and 
died, 

To  keep  the  Past  upon  its  throne  ; 
Unheard,  beyond  the  ocean  tide, 
Their  English  mother  made  her  moan. 

The  turf  that  covers  them  no  thrill 
Sends  up  to  fire  the  heart  and  brain  ; 
No  stronger  purpose  nerves  the  will, 
No  hope  renews  its  youth  again  : 
From  farm  to  farm  the  Concord  glides, 
And  trails  my  fancy  with  its  flow  ; 
O'erhead  the  balanced  hen-hawk  slides, 
Twinned  in  the  river's  heaven  below. 

But  go,  whose  Bay  State  bosom  stirs, 
Proud  of  thy  birth  and  neighbor  s  right, 
Where  sleep  the  heroic  villagers 
Borne  red  and  stiff  from  Concord  fight  ; 
Thought  Reuben,  snatching  down  his 
gun, 

Or  Seth,  as  ebbed  the  life  away, 
What  earthquake  rifts  would  shoot  and 
run 

World-wide  from  that  short  April  fray  ? 

What  then  ?  With  heart  and  hand  they 

wrought, 
According  to  their  village  light ; 
'T  was  for  the  Future  that  they  fought, 
Their  rustic  faith  in  what  was  right. 
Upon  earth's  tragic  stage  they  burst 
Unsummoned,  in  the  humble  sock  ; 
Theirs  the  fifth  act ;  the  curtain  first 
Rose  long  ago  on  Charles's  block. 

Their  graves  have  voices  ;  if  they  threw 
Dice  charged  with  fates  beyond  their 
ken, 

Yet  to  their  instincts  they  were  true, 
And  had  the  genius  to  be*  men. 


96 


MISCELLANEOUS  POEMS. 


Fine  privilege  of  Freedom's  host. 
Of  even  foot -soldiers  for  the  Kight !  — 
For  centuries  dead,  ye  Are  not  lost. 
Your  graves  send  courage  forth,  and 
might, 

TO   . 

Ws,  too.  tart  autumns,  when  our  leaves 
Drop  loosely  through  the  dampened 
air, 

go;  a    Sceu:s  bound  ::: 

sheaves. 
And  v-  e  stand  leaped  and  bare. 

Our  seasons  have  no  fixed  returns. 

Without  our  will  they  come  and  go  ; 
At  noon  our  sudden  summer  burns. 

Ere  sunset  all  is  snow. 

But  each  day  brings  less  summer  eheer, 
Crimps  more  our  ineffectual  spring, 

And  something  earlier  every  year 
Our  singing  Virus  take  wing. 

As  less  the  olden  g'.ow  abides, 

And  less  the  chillier  heart  aspires, 
"With  dr::':-wcod  beached  in  pas':  spring- 
tides 

We  Ligi.t  car  sullen  tires. 

By  the   pinched  rushlight's  starving 
beam 

We  ;cwer  a-'  i  strain  our  wasted  sight. 
To  stitch  youth's  shroud  up,  seam  by 

ma  , 

In  the  long  arctic  night. 

It  was  not  sc  —  we  ;n:e  were  young  — 
When  Spring,  to  womanly  Summer 
turn:'  -.g. 

Her  dew-drops    on    each   grass- 1 naie 
strung. 

In  the  red  sunrise  burning. 

We  trusted  then,  aspired,  believed 
That  earth  could  be  remade  to-mor- 
row ;  — 

Ah.  why  be  ever  undeceived  I 
Why  give  up  faith  for  sorrow  ? 

0  thou,  w;-  .';  spring, 

Faith,  blighted  once,  is  past  retriev- 
ing: 

Experience  is  a  dumb,  dead  thing  ; 
ietc  i  y  a  Ln  believing. 


FREEDOM. 

Are  we,  then,  wholly  fallen  ?  Can  it  be 
That  thou,  North  wind,  that  from  thy 

mountains  bringest 
Their  spirit  to  our  plains,  and  thou, 

blue  sea, 

Who  on  our  rocks  thy  wreaths  of  free- 
dom flingest, 
As  on  an  altar,  —  can  it  be  that  ye 
Have  wasted  inspiration  on  dead* ears, 
Dulled  with  the  too  familiar  clank  of 
chains  ? 

The  people's  heart  is  like  a  harp  for 
years 

Hung  where  some  petrifying  torrent  rains 
Its  slow-incrusting  spray :  the  stiffened 
chords 

Faint  and  more  faint  make  answer  to  the 
tears 

That  drip  upon  them  :  idle  are  all  words : 
Only  a  silver  plectrum  wakes  the  tone 
Deep  buried  'neath  that  ever- thickening 
stone. 

We  are  not  free :  Freedom  doth  not 

consist 

In  musing  with  our  faces  toward  the 
Past. 

While  petty  cares,  and  crawling  inter- 
ests, twist 

Their  spider- threads  about  us,  which  at 
last 

Grow  strong  as  iron  chains,  to  cramp 
and  bind 

In  formal  narrowness  heart,  soul,  and 
mind. 

Freedom  is  recreated  year  by  year, 
In  hearts  wide  open  on  the  God  ward  side, 
In  souls  calm-cadenced  as  the  whirling 
sphere, 

In  minds  that  sway  the  future  like  a  tide. 
Xo  broadest  creeds  can  hold  her,  and  no 

codes  ; 

She  chooses  men  for  her  august  abodes, 
Building  them  fair  and  fronting  to  the 
dawn  ; 

Yet,  when  we  seek  her,  we  bnt  find  a 
few 

Light  footprints,  leading  morn-ward. 

through  the  dew  : 
Before  the  day  had  risen,  she  was  gone. 

And  we  must  follow :  swiftly  runs  she  on, 
And,  if  our  steps  should  slacken  in  de- 
spair, 


BIBLIOLATRES. 


99 


Half  turns  her  face,  half  smiles  through 

golden  hair, 
Forever  yielding,  never  wholly  won  : 
That  is  not  love  which  pauses  in  the  race 
Two  close-linked  names  on  fleeting  sand 

to  trace ; 

Freedom  gained  yesterday  is  no  more 
ours ; 

Men  gather  but  dry  seeds  of  last  year's 
flowers ; 

Still  there 's  a  charm  ungranted,  still  a 
grace, 

Still  rosy  Hope,  the  free,  the  unattained, 
Makes  us  Possession's  languid  hand  let 
fall ; 

'T  is  but  a  fragment  of  ourselves  is 
gained,  — 

The  Future  brings  us  more,  but  never 
all. 

And,  as  the  finder  of  some  unknown 
realm, 

Mounting  a  summit  whence  he  thinks  to 
see 

On  either  side  of  him  the  imprisoning 
sea, 

Beholds,  above  the  clouds  that  over- 
whelm 

The  valley-land,  peak  after  snowy  peak 
Stretch  out  of  sight,  each  like  a  silver 
helm 

Beneath  its  plume  of  smoke,  sublime 

and  bleak, 
And  what  he  thought  an  island  finds  to 

be 

A  continent  to  him  first  oped,  —  so  we 
Can  from  our  height  of  Freedom  look 
along 

A  boundless  future,  ours  if  we  be  strong  ; 
Or  if  we  shrink,  better  remount  our 
ships 

And,  fleeing  God's  express  design,  trace 
back 

The  hero-freighted  Mayflower's  prophet- 
track 

To  Europe,  entering  her  blood-red  eclipse. 
1848. 

BIBLIOLATRES. 

Bowing  thyself  in  dust  before  a  Book, 
And  thinking  the  great  God  is  thine 
alone, 

O  rash  iconoclast,  thou  wilt  not  brook 
What  gods  the  heathen  carves  in  wood 
and  stone, 

As  if  the  Shepherd  who  from  outer  cold 


Leads  all  his  shivering  lambs  to  one  sure 
fold 

"Were  careful  for  the  fashion  of  his  crook. 

There  is  no  broken  reed  so  poor  and  base, 
No  rush,  the  bending  tilt  of  swamp-fly 
blue, 

But  he  therewith  the  ravening  wolf  can 
chase, 

And  guide  his  flock  to  springs  and  pas- 
tures new ; 

Through  ways  unlooked  for,  and  through 
many  lands, 

Far  from  the  rich  folds  built  with  human 
hands, 

The  gracious  footprints  of  his  love  I 
trace. 

And  what  art  thou,  own  brother  of  the 
clod, 

That  from  his  hand  the  crook  would 

snatch  away 
And  shake  instead  thy  dry  and  sapless 

rod, 

To  scare  the  sheep  out  of  the  wholesome 
day? 

Yea,  what  art  thou,  blind,  unconverted 
Jew, 

That  with  thy  idol-volume's  covers  two 
Wouldst  make  a  jail  to  coop  the  living 
God? 

Thou  hear'st  not  well  the  mountain 

organ-tones 
By  prophet  ears  from  Hor  and  Sinai 

caught, 

Thinking  the  cisterns  of  those  Hebrew 
brains 

Drew  dry  the  springs  of  the  All-knower's 
thought, 

Nor  shall  thy  lips  be  touched  with  liv- 
ing fire, 

"Who  blow'st  old  altar-coals  with  sole 
desire 

To  weld  anew  the  spirit's  broken  chains. 

God  is  not  dumb,  that  he  should  speak 
no  more  ; 

If  thou  hast  wanderings  in  the  wilder- 
ness 

And  find'st  not  Sinai,  't  is  thy  soul  is 
poor ; 

There  towers  the  mountain  of  the  Voice 
no  less, 

"Which  whoso  seeks  shall  find,  but  he 
who  bends, 


100 


MISCELLANEOUS  POEMS. 


Intent  on  manna  still  and  mortal  ends, 
Sees  it  not,  neither  hears  its  thundered 
lore. 

Slowly  the  Bible  of  the  race  is  writ, 
And  not  on  paper  leaves  nor  leaves  of 
stone ; 

Each  age,  each  kindred,  adds  a  verse 
to  it, 

Texts  of  despair  or  hope,  of  joy  or  moan. 
While  swings  the  sea,  while  mists  the 

mountains  shroud, 
While  thunder's  surges  burst  on  cliffs  of 

cloud, 

Still  at  the  prophets'  feet  the  nations  sit. 


BEAVER  BROOK. 

Hushed  with  broad  sunlight  lies  the 
hill, 

And,  minuting  the  long  day's  loss, 
The  cedar's  shadow,  slow  and  still, 
Creeps  o'er  its  dial  of  gray  moss. 

Warm  noon  brims  full  the  valley's  cup, 
The  aspen's  leaves  are  scarce  astir ; 
Only  the  little  mill  sends  up 
Its  busy,  never-ceasing  burr. 

Climbing  the  loose-piled  wall  that  hems 
The  road  along  the  mill-pond's  brink, 
From  'neath  the  arching  barberry-stems, 
My  footstep  scares  the  shy  chewink. 

Beneath  a  bony  button  wood 
The  mill's  red  door  lets  forth  the  din  ; 
The  whitened  miller,  dust-imbued, 
Flits  past  the  square  of  dark  within. 

No  mountain  torrent's  strength  is  here  ; 
Sweet  Beaver,  child  of  forest  still, 


Heaps  its  small  pitcher  to  the  ear, 
And  gently  waits  the  miller's  will. 

Swift  slips  Undine  along  the  race 
Unheard,  and  then,  with  flashing  bound, 
Floods  the  dull  wheel  with  light  and 
grace, 

And,  laughing,  hunts  the  loath  drudge 
round. 

The  miller  dreams  not  at  what  cost 
The    quivering   millstones  hum  and 
whirl, 

Nor  how  for  every  turn  are  tost 
Armfuls  of  diamond  and  of  pearl. 

But  Summer  cleared  my  happier  eyes 
With  drops  of  some  celestial  juice, 
To  see  how  Beauty  underlies, 
Forevermore  each  form  of  use. 

And  more  ;  methought  I  saw  that  flood, 
Which  now  so  dull  and  darkling  steals, 
Thick,  here  and  there,  with  human 
blood, 

To  turn  the  world's  laborious  wheels. 

No  more  than  doth  the  miller  there, 
Shut  in  our  several  cells,  do  we 
Know  with  what  waste  of  beauty  rare 
Moves  every  day's  machinery. 

Surely  the  wiser  time  shall  come 
When  this  fine  overplus  of  might, 
No  longer  sullen,  slow,  and  dumb, 
Shall  leap  to  music  and  to  light. 

In  that  new  childhood  of  the  Earth 
Life  of  itself  shall  dance  and  play, 
Fresh  blood  in  Time's  shrunk  veins  make 
mirth, 

And  labor  meet  delight  half-way. 


KOSSUTH.  —  TO  LAMARTINE. 


ior 


MEMORIAL  VERSES. 


KOSSUTH. 

A  race  of  nobles  may  die  out, 
A  royal  line  may  leave  no  heir  ; 
"Wise  Nature  sets  no  guards  about 
Her  pewter  plate  and  wooden  ware. 

But  they  fail  not,  the  kinglier  breed, 
"Who  starry  diadems  attain  ; 
To  dungeon,  axe,  and  stake  succeed 
Heirs  of  the  old  heroic  strain. 

The  zeal  of  Nature  never  cools, 
Nor  is  she  thwarted  of  her  ends  ; 
When  gapped  and  dulled  her  cheaper 
tools, 

Then  she  a  saint  and  prophet  spends. 

Land  of  the  Magyars  !  though  it  be 
The  tyrant  may  relink  his  chain, 
Already  thine  the  victory, 
As  the  just  Future  measures  gain. 

Thou  hast  succeeded,  thou  hast  won 
The  deathly  travail's  amplest  worth ; 
A  nation's  duty  thou  hast  done, 
Giving  a  hero  to  our  earth. 

And  he,  let  come  what  will  of  woe, 
Hath  saved  the  land  he  strove  to  save ; 
No  Cossack  hordes,  no  traitor's  blow, 
Can  quench  the  voice  shall  haunt  his 
grave. 

"  I  Kossuth  am  :  0  Future,  thou 
That  clear' st  the  just  and  blott'st  the 
vile, 

O'er  this  small  dust  in  reverence  bow, 
Remembering  what  I  was  erewhile. 

"  I  was  the  chosen  trump  wherethrough 
Our  God  sent  forth  awakening  breath ; 
Came  chains  ?  Came  death  ?  The  strain 
He  blew 

Sounds  on,  outliving  chains  and  death." 


TO  LAMARTINE. 

1848. 

I  did  not  praise  thee  when  the  crowd, 
'  Witched  with  the  moment's  inspi- 
ration, 

Vexed  thy  still  ether  with  hosannas  loud, 
And  stamped  their  dusty  adoration  ; 
I  but  looked  upward  with  the  rest, 
And,  when  they  shouted  Greatest,  whis- 
pered Best. 

They  raised  thee  not,  but  rose  to  thee, 
Their  fickle  wreaths  about  thee  Hing- 
ing; 

So  on  some  marble  Phoebus  the  high  sea 
Might  leave  his  worthless  seaweed 
clinging, 

But  pious  hands,  with  reverent  care, 
Make  the  pure  limbs  once  more  sub- 
limely bare. 

Now  thou  'rt  thy  plain,  grand  self  again, 
Thou  art  secure  from  panegyric, — 

Thou  who  gav'st  politics  an  epic  strain, 
And   actedst    Freedom's  noblest 
lyric ; 

This  side  the  Blessed  Isles,  no  tree 
Grows  green  enough  to  make  a  wreath 
for  thee. 

Nor  can  blame  cling  to  thee ;  the  snow 
From  swinish  footprints  takes  no 
staining, 

But,  leaving  the  gross  soils  of  earth  be- 
low, 

Its  spirit  mounts,  the  skies  regain- 
ing, 

And  unresentful  falls  again, 
To  beautify  the  world  with  dews  and 
rain. 

The  highest  duty  to  mere  man  vouch- 
safed 

Was  laid  on  thee,  — out  of  wild 
chaos, 


102 


MEMORIAL  VERSES. 


When  the  roused  popular  ocean  foamed 
and  chafed, 
And  vulture  War  from  his  Imaus 
Snuffed  blood,  to  summon  homely 
Peace, 

And  show  that  only  order  is  release. 

To   carve  thy  fullest  thought,  what 
though 

Time  was  not  granted?    Aye  in 
history, 

Like  that  Dawn's  face  which  baffled 
Angelo 

Left  shapeless,  grander  for  its  mys- 
tery, 

Thy  great  Design  shall  stand,  and  day 
Flood  its  blind  front  from  Orients  far 
away. 

Who  says  thy  day  is  o'er  ?  Control, 

My  heart,  that  bitter  first  emotion ; 
While  men  shall  reverence  the  steadfast 
soul, 

The  heart  in  silent  self-devotion 
Breaking,  the  mild,  heroic  mien, 
Thou  'It  need  no  prop  of  marble,  Lamar- 
tine. 

If  France  reject  thee,  't  is  not  thine, 
But  her  own,  exile  that  she  utters  ; 

Ideal  France,  the  deathless,  the  divine, 
Will  be  where  thy  white  pennon 
flutters, 

As  once  the  nobler  Athens  went 
With  Aristides  into  banishment. 

No  fitting  metewand  hath  To-day 

For  measuring  spirits  of  thy  stat- 
ure ; 

Only  the  Future  can  reach  up  to  lay 
The  laurel  on  that  lofty  nature, 
Bard,  who  with  some  diviner  art 
Hast  touched  the  bard's  true  lyre,  a  na- 
tion's heart. 

Swept  by  thy  hand,  the  gladdened 
chords, 

Crashed  now  in  discords  fierce  by 
others, 

Gave  forth  one  note  beyond  all  skill  of 
words, 

And  chimed  together,  We  are  broth- 
ers. 

0  poem  unsurpassed !  it  ran 
All  round  the  world,  unlocking  man  to 
man. 


France  is  too  poor  to  pay  alone 

The  service  of  that  ample  spirit ; 
Paltry  seem  low  dictatorship  and  throne, 
If  balanced  with  thy  simple  merit. 
They  had  to  thee  been  rust  and  loss ; 
Thy  aim  was  higher,  — thou  hast  climbed 
a  Cross  ! 


TO  JOHN  G.  PALFREY. 

There  are  who  triumph  in  a  losing 

cause, 

Who  can  put  on  defeat,  as 't  were  a 
wreath 

Unwithering  in  the  adverse  popular 
breath, 

Safe  from  the  blasting  demagogue's 

applause  ; 
'T  is  they  who  stand  for  Freedom  and 

God's  laws. 

And  so  stands  Palfrey  now,  as  Marvell 
stood, 

Loyal  to  Truth  dethroned,  nor  could  be 
wooed 

To  trust  the  playful  tiger's  velvet 
paws  : 

And  if  the  second  Charles  brought  in 
decay 

Of  ancient  virtue,  if  it  well  might 
wring 

Souls  that  had  broadened  'neath  a 

nobler  day, 
To  see  a  losel,  marketable  king 
Fearfully  watering  with  his  realm's  best 

blood 

Cromwell's  quenched  bolts,  that  erst 
had  cracked  and  flamed, 
Scaring,  through  all  their  depths  of 
courtier  mud, 
Europe's    crowned    bloodsuckers,  — 
how  more  ashamed 
Ought  we  to  be,  who  see  Corruption's 
flood 

Still  rise  o'er  last  year's  mark,  to 

mine  away 
Our  brazen  idols'  feet  of  treacherous 

clay ! 

0  utter  degradation  !    Freedom  turned 
Slavery's  vile  bawd,  to  cozen  and  be- 
tray 

To  the  old  lecher's  clutch  a  maiden 
prey, 

If   so  a  loathsome    pander's  fee  be 
earned ! 


TO  W.  L. 

And  we  are  silent,  —  we  who  daily- 
tread 

A  soil  sublime,  at  least,  with  heroes' 
graves !  — 
Beckon  no  more,  shades  of  the  noble 
dead ! 

Be  dumb,  ye  heaven-touched  lips  of 
winds  and  waves ! 
Or  hope  to  rouse  some  Coptic  dullard, 
hid 

Ages  ago,  wrapt  stiffly,  fold  on  fold, 
With  cerements  close,  to  wither  in  the 
cold 

Forever  hushed,  and  sunless  pyramid ! 

Beauty  and  Truth,  and  all  that  these 
contain, 

Drop  not  like  ripened  fruit  about  our 
feet ; 

"We  climb  to  them  through  years  of 

sweat  and  pain  ; 
Without  long  struggle,  none  did  e'er 

attain 

The  downward  look  from  Quiet's  bliss- 
ful seat : 

Though  present  loss  may  be  the  hero's 
part, 

Yet  none  can  rob  him  of  the  victor 
heart 

Whereby  the  broad-realmed  future  is 
subdued, 

And  Wrong,  which  now  insults  from 

triumph's  car, 
Sending  her  vulture  hope  to  raven 

far, 

Is  made  unwilling  tributary  of  Good. 

0  Mother  State,  how  quenched  thy 
Sinai  fires  ! 
Is  there  none  left  of  thy  stanch  May- 
flower breed  ? 
No  spark  among  the  ashes  of  thy  sires, 
Of  Virtue's  altar-flame  the  kindling 
seed  ? 

Are  these  thy  great  men,  these  that 

cringe  and  creep, 
And  writhe  through  slimy  ways  to 

place  and  power  ?  — 
How  long,  0  Lord,  before  thy  wrath 

shall  reap 
Our  frail-stemmed  summer  prosper- 

ings  in  their  flower  ? 
0  for  one  hour  of  that  undaunted 

stock 

That  went  with  Vane  and  Sydney  to 
the  block! 


GARRISON.  103 

0  for  a  whiff  of  Naseby,  that  would 
sweep, 

With  its  stern  Puritan  besom,  all  this 
chaff 

From  the  Lord's  threshing-floor  !  Yet 
more  than  half 
The  victory  is  attained,  when  one  or 
two, 

Through  the  fool's  laughter  and  the 

traitor's  scorn, 
Beside  thy  sepulchre  can  bide  the 

morn, 

Crucified  Truth,  when  thou  shalt  rise 
anew. 


TO  W.  L.  GARRISON. 

"  Some  time  afterward,  it  was  reported  to  me 
by  the  city  officers  that  they  had  ferreted  out 
the  paper  and  its  editor ;  that  his  office  was  an 
obscure  hole,  his  only  visible  auxiliary  a  negro 
boy,  and  his  supporters  a  few  very  insignifi- 
cant persons  of  all  colors."  —  Letter  of  H.  G. 
Otis. 

In  a  small  chamber,  friendless  and  un- 
seen, 

Toiled  o'er  his  types  one  poor,  un- 
learned young  man; 
The  place  was  dark,  unfurnitured,  and 
mean ;  — 

Yet  there  the  freedom  of  a  race  began. 

Help  came  but  slowly  ;  surely  no  man 
yet 

Put  lever  to  the  heavy  world  with 
less : 

What  need  of  help?   He  knew  how 
types  were  set, 
He  had  a  dauntless  spirit,  and  a 
press. 

Such  earnest  natures  are  the  fiery  pith, 
The  compact  nucleus,  round  which 
systems  grow ! 

Mass  after  mass  becomes  inspired  there- 
with, 

And  whirls  impregnate  with  the  cen- 
tral glqw. 

0  Truth  !  0  Freedom  !  how  are  ye  still 
born 

In  the  rude  stable,  in  the  manger 
nursed  ! 

What  humble  hands  unbar  those  gates 
of  morn 

Through  which  the  splendors  of  the 
New  Day  burst ! 


104 


MEMORIAL  VERSES. 


What!  shall  one  monk,  scarce  known 
beyond  his  cell, 
Front  Rome's  far-reaching  bolts,  and 
scorn  her  frown  ? 
Brave  Luther  answered  Yes  ;  that  thun- 
der's swell 
Rocked  Europe,  and  discharmed  the 
triple  crown. 

Whatever  can  be  known  of  earth  we 
know, 

Sneered  Europe's  wise  men,  in  their 
snail-shells  curled ; 
No !  said  one  man  in  Genoa,  and  that 
No 

Out  of  the  dark  created  this  New 
World. 

Who  is  it  will  not  dare  himself  to  trust  ? 
Who  is  it  hath  not  strength  to  stand 
alone  ? 

Who  is  it  thwarts  and  bilks  the  inward 
must  ? 

He  and  his  works,  like  sand,  from 
earth  are  blown. 

Men  of  a  thousand  shifts  and  wiles, 
look  here ! 
See  one   straightforward  conscience 
put  in  pawn 
To  win  a  world ;  see  the  obedient  sphere 
By  bravery's  simple  gravitation  drawn ! 

Shall  we  not  heed  the  lesson  taught  of 
old, 

And  by  the  Present's  lips  repeated 
still, 

In  our  own  single  manhood  to  be  bold, 
Fortressed  in  conscience  and  impreg- 
nable will  ? 

We  stride  the  river  daily  at  its  spring, 
Nor,  in  our  childish  thoughtlessness, 
foresee, 

What  myriad  vassal  streams  shall  trib- 
ute bring, 
How  like  an  equal  it  shall  greet  the 
sea.  . 

0  small  beginnings,  ye  are  great  and 
strong, 

Based  on  a  faithful  heart  and  weari- 
less brain ! 
Ye  build  the  future  fair,  ye  conquer 
wrong, 

Ye  earn  the  crown,  and  wear  it  not  in 
vain. 


ON  THE  DEATH  OF  C.  T.  TORREY. 

Woe  worth  the  hour  when  it  is  crime 
To  plead  the  poor  dumb  bondman's 
cause, 

When  all  that  makes  the  heart  sublime, 
The  glorious  throbs  that  conquer  time, 
Are  traitors  to  our  cruel  laws ! 

He  strove  among  God's  suffering  poor 
One  gleam  of  brotherhood  to  send ; 
The  dungeon  oped  its  hungry  door 
To  give  the  truth  one  martyr  more, 
Then  shut, — and  here  behold  the 
end  ! 

0  Mother  State  !  when  this  was  done, 
No  pitying  throe  thy  bosom  gave  ; 
Silent  thou  saw'st   the  death-shroud 
spun, 

And  now  thou  givest  to  thy  son 
The  stranger's  charity,  —  a  grave. 

Must  it  be  thus  forever  ?    No  ! 

The  hand  of  God  sows  not  in  vain  ; 
Long  sleeps  the  darkling  seed  below, 
The  seasons  come,  and  change,  and  go, 

And  all  the  fields  are  deep  with  grain. 

Although  our  brother  lie  asleep, 

Man's  heart  still  struggles,  still  as- 
pires ; 

His  grave  shall  quiver  yet,  while  deep 
Through  the  brave  Bay  State's  pulses 
leap 

Her  ancient  energies  and  fires. 

When  hours  like  this  the  senses'  gush 

Have  stilled,  and  left  the  spirit  room, 
It  hears  amid  the  eternal  hush 
The  swooping  pinions'  dreadful  rush, 
That  bring  the  vengeance  and  the 
doom  ;  — 

Not  man's  brute  vengeance,  such  as  rends 

What  rivets  man  to  man  apart, —  . 
God  doth  not  so  bring  round  his  ends, 
But  waits  the  ripened  time,  and  sends 
His  mercy  to  the  oppressor's  heart. 


ELEGY  ON  THE  DEATH  OF  DR. 
CHANNING. 

I  do  not  come  to  weep  above  thy  pall, 
And  mourn  the  dying-out  of  noble 
powers  ; 


ELEGY  ON  THE  DEA1 

The  poet's  clearer  eye  should  see,  in  all 
Earth's  seeming  woe,   the  seed  of 
Heaven's  flowers. 

Truth  needs  no  champions  :  in  the  infi- 
nite deep 

Of    everlasting  Soul  her  strength 
abides, 

From  Nature's  heart  her  mighty  pulses 
leap, 

Through  Nature's  veins  her  strength, 
undying,  tides. 

Peace  is  more  strong  than  war,  and  gen- 
tleness, 

Where  force  were  vain,  makes  con- 
quest o'er  the  wave  ; 
And  love  lives  on  and  hath  a  power  to 
bless, 

"When  they  who  loved  are  hidden  in 
the  grave. 

The  sculptured  marble  brags  of  death- 
strewn  fields, 
And  Glory's  epitaph  is  writ  in  blood; 
But  Alexander  now  to  Plato  yields, 
Clarkson  will  stand  where  Wellington 
hath  stood. 

I  watch  the  circle  of  the  eternal  years, 
And  read  forever  in  the  storied  page 
One  lengthened  roll  of  blood,  and  wrong, 
and  tears, — 
One  onward  step  of  Truth  from  age  to 
age. 

The  poor  are  crushed ;  the  tyrants  link 
their  chain ; 
The  poet  sings  through  narrow  dun- 
geon-grates ; 
Man's  hope  lies  quenched ;  —  and,  lo  ! 
with  steadfast  gain 
Freedom  doth  forge  her  mail  of  adverse 
fates. 

Men  slay  the  prophets ;  fagot,  rack,  and 
cross 

Make  up  the  groaning  record  of  the 
past ; 

But  Evil's  triumphs  are  her  endless  loss, 
And  sovereign  Beauty  wins  the  soul 
at  last. 

No  power  can  die  that  ever  wrought  for 
Truth; 

Thereby  a  law  of  Nature  it  became, 


a  OF  DR.  CHANNING.  105 

And  lives  unwithered  in  its  sinewy 
youth, 

When  he  who  called  it  forth  is  but  a 
name. 

Therefore  I  cannot  think  thee  wholly 
gone  ; 

The  better  part  of  thee  is  with  us 
still  ; 

Thy  soul  its  hampering  clay  aside  hath 
thrown, 

And  only  freer  wrestles  with  the  111. 

Thou  livest  in  the  life  of  all  good  things ; 
What  words  thou  spak'st  for  Freedom 

shall  not  die  ; 
Thou  sleepest  not,  for  now  thy  Love  hath 

wings 

To  soar  where  hence  thy  Hope  could 
hardly  fly. 

And  often,  from  that  other  world,  on 
this 

Some  gleams  from  great  souls  gone 
before  may  shine, 
To  shed  on  struggling  hearts  a  clearer 
bliss, 

And  clothe  the  Right  with  lustre  more 
divine. 

Thou  art  not  idle :  in  thy  higher  sphere 
Thy  spirit  bends  itself  to  loving  tasks, 
And  strength  to  perfect  what  it  dreamed 
of  here 

Is  all  the  crown  and  glory  that  it  asks. 

For  sure,  in  Heaven's  wide  chambers, 
there  is  room 
For  love  and  pity,  and  for  helpful 
deeds ; 

Else  were  our  summons  thither  but  a 
doom 

To  life  more  vain  than  this  in  clayey 
weeds. 

From  off  the  starry  mountain-peak  of 
song, 

Thy  spirit  shows  me,  in  the  coming 
time, 

An  earth  unwithered  by  the  foot  of 
wrong, 

A  race  revering  its  own  soul  sublime. 

What  wars,  what  martyrdoms,  what 
crimes,  may  come, 
Thou  knowest  not,  nor  I;  but  God 
will  lead 


106 


MEMORIAL  VERSES. 


The  prodigal  soul  from  want  and  sorrow 
home, 

And  Eden  ope  her  gates  to  Adam's 
seed. 

Farewell  !  good  man,  good  angel  now  ! 
this  hand 
Sood,  like  thine  own,  shall  lose  its 
cunning  too  ; 
Soon  shall  this  soul,  like  thine,  bewil- 
dered stand, 
Then  leap  to  thread  the  free,  unfath- 
omed  blue  : 

When  that  day  comes,  0,  may  this  hand 
grow  cold, 
Busy,  like  thine,  for  Freedom  and  the 
"Right  ; 

0,  may  this  soul,  like  thine,  be  ever  bold 
To  face  dark  Slavery's  encroaching 
blight ! 

This  laurel-leaf  I  cast  upon  thy  bier  ; 
Let  worthier  hands  than  these  thy 
wreath  intwine  ; 
Upon  thy  hearse  I  shed  no  useless  tear, — 
For  us  weep  rather  thou  in  calm  di- 
vine ! 

1842. 

TO  THE  MEMORY  OF  HOOD. 

Another  star  'neath  Time's  horizon 
dropped, 

To  gleam  o'er  unknown  lands  and 
seas  ; 

Another  heart  that  beat  for  freedom 
stopped, — 
"What  mournful  words  are  these  ! 

0  Love  Divine,  that  claspest  our  tired 
earth, 

And  lullest  it  upon  thy  heart, 


Thou  knowest  how  much  a  gentle  soul 
is  worth 
To  teach  men  what  thou  art  ! 

His  was  a  spiiit  that  to  all  thy  poor 
Was  kind  as  slumber  after  pain: 

Why  ope   so   soon  thy  heaven-deep 
Quiet's  door 
And  call  him  home  again  ? 

Freedom  needs  all  her  poets :  it  is  they 
"Who  give  her  aspirations  wings, 

And  to  the  wiser  law  of  music  sway 
Her  wild  imaginings. 

Yet  thou  hast  called  him,  nor  art  thou 
unkind, 

0  Love  Divine,  for 't  is  thy  will 
That  gracious  natures  leave  their  love 
behind 
To  work  for  Freedom  still. 

Let  laurelled  marbles  weigh  on  other 
tombs, 

Let  anthems  peal  for  other  dead, 
Rustling  the  bannered  depth  of  minster- 
glooms 

With  their  exulting  spread. 

His  epitaph  shall  mock  the  short-lived 
stone, 

No  lichen  shall  its  lines  efface, 
He  needs  these  few  and  simple  lines 
alone 

To  mark  his  resting-place  :  — 

"Here  lies  a  Poet.    Stranger,  if  to 
thee 

His  claim  to  memory  be  obscure, 
If  thou  wouldst  learn  how  truly  great 
was  he, 
Go,  ask  it  of  the  poor." 


THE  VISION  OF  SIR  LAUNFAL. 


107 


THE  VISION  OF  SIR  LAUNFAL. 


PRELUDE  TO  PART  FIRST. 

Over  his  keys  the  musing  organist, 

Beginning  doubtfully  and  far  away, 
First  lets  his  fingers  wander  as  they  list, 
And  builds  a  bridge  from  Dreamland 
for  his  lay : 
Then,  as  the  touch  of  his  loved  instru- 
ment 

Gives  hope  and  fervor,  nearer  draws 
his  theme, 
First  guessed  by  faint  auroral  flushes 
sent 

Along  the  wavering  vista  of  his  dream. 


Not  only  around  our  infancy 
Doth  heaven  with  all  its  splendors  lie ; 
Daily,  with  souls  that  cringe  and  plot, 
"VVe  Sinais  climb  and  know  it  not. 

Over  our  manhood  bend  the  skies  ; 

Against  our  fallen  and  traitor  lives 
The  great  winds  utter  prophecies  ; 

With  our  faint  hearts  the  mountain 
strives ; 

Its  arms  outstretched,  the  druid  wood 

Waits  with  its  benedicite ; 
And  to  our  age's  drowsy  blood 

Still  shouts  the  inspiring  sea. 

Earth  gets  its  price  for  what  Earth  gives 
us  ; 

The  beggar  is  taxed  for  a  corner  to  die 
in, 

The  priest  hath  his  fee  who  comes  and 

shrives  us, 
We  bargain  for  the  graves  we  lie  in  ; 
At  the  devil's  booth  are  all  things  sold, 
Each  ounce  of  dross  costs  its  ounce  of 

gold; 

For  a  cap  and  bells  our  lives  we  pay, 
Bubbles  we  buy  with  a  whole  soul's 
tasking  : 

'T  is  heaven  alone  that  is  given  away, 
'T  is  only  God  may  be  had  for  the  ask- 
ing ; 


No  price  is  set  on  the  lavish  summer  ; 
June  may  be  had  by  the  poorest  comer. 

And  what  is  so  rare  as  a  day  in  June  ? 

Then,  if  ever,  come  perfect  days  ; 
Then  Heaven  tries  the  earth  if  it  be  in 
tune, 

And  over  it  softly  her  warm  ear  lays : 
Whether  we  look,  or  whether  we  listen, 
We  hear  life  murmur,  or  see  it  glisten ; 
Every  clod  feels  a  stir  of  might, 

An  instinct  within  it  that  reaches  and 
towers, 

And,  groping  blindly  above  it  for  light, 
Climbs  to  a  soul  in  grass  and  flowers ; 

The  flush  of  life  may  well  be  seen 

Thrilling  back  over  hills  and  valleys  ; 

The  cowslip  startles  in  meadows  green, 
The  buttercup  catches  the  sun  in  its 
chalice, 

And  there 's  never  a  leaf  nor  a  blade  too 
mean 

To  be  some  happy  creature's  palace ; 
The  little  bird  sits  at  his  door  in  the 
sun, 

Atilt  like  a  blossom  among  the  leaves, 
And  lets  his  illumined  being  o'er  run 

With  the  deluge  of  summer  it  receives ; 
His  mate  feels  the  eggs  beneath  her 
wings, 

And  the  heart  in  her  dumb  breast  flutters 

and  sings ; 
He  sings  to  the  wide  world,  and  she  to 

her  nest,  — 
Tn  the  nice  ear  of  Nature  which  song  is 

the  best? 

Now  is  the  high-tide  of  the  year, 

And  whatever  of  life  hath  ebbed  away 

Comes  flooding  back  with  a  ripply  cheer, 
Into  every  bare  inlet  and  creek  and 
bay; 

Now  the  heart  is  so  full  that  a  drop 

overfills  it, 
We  are  happy  now  because  God  wills  it ; 
No  matter  how  barren  the  past  may 

have  been, 


108 


THE  VISION  OF  SIR  LAUNFAL. 


'T  is  enough  for  us  now  that  the  leaves 
are  green ; 

We  sit  in  the  warm  shade  and  feel  right 
well 

How  the  sap  creeps  up  and  the  blossoms 
swell ; 

"We  may  shut  our  eyes,  but  we  cannot 
help  knowing 

That  skies  are  clear  and  grass  is  grow- 
ing; 

The  breeze  comes  whispering  in  our  ear, 
That  dandelions  are  blossoming  near, 
That  maize  has  sprouted,  that  streams 

are  flowing, 
That  the  river  is  bluer  than  the  sky, 
That  the  robin  is  plastering  his  house 

hard  by; 

And  if  the  breeze  kept  the  good  news 
back, 

For  other  couriers  we  should  not  lack ; 

We  could  guess  it  all  by  yon  heifer's 
lowing,  — 
And  hark !  how  clear  bold  chanticleer, 
Warmed  with  the  new  wine  of  the  year, 

Tells  all  in  his  lusty  crowing  ! 

Joy  comes,  grief  goes,  we  know  not  how  ; 
Everything  is  happy  now, 

Everything  is  upward  striving ; 
'T  is  as  easy  now  for  the  heart  to  be  true 
As  for  grass  to  be  green  or  skies  to  be 
blue,  —  / 
'T  is  the  natural  way  of  living  : 
Who  knows  whither  the  clouds  have 
fled? 

In  the  unscarred  heaven  they  leave  no 
wake ; 

And  the  eyes  forget  the  tears  they  have 
shed, 

The  heart  forgets  its  sorrow  and  ache  ; 
The  soul  partakes  the  season's  youth, 
And  the  sulphurous  rifts  of  passion 
and  woe 

Lie  deep  'neath  a  silence  pure  and 
smooth, 

Like  bnrnt-out  craters  healed  with 
snow. 

What  wonder  if  Sir  Launfal  now 
Remembered  the  keeping  of  his  vow  ? 


PART  FIRST. 
I. 

"  My  golden  spurs  now  bring  to  me, 
And  bring  to  me  my  richest  mail, 
For  to-morrow  I  go  over  land  and  sea 


In  search  of  the  Holy  Grail  ; 
Shall  never  a  bed  for  me  be  spread, 
Nor  shall  a  pillow  be  under  my  head, 
Till  I  begin  my  vow  to  keep  ; 
Here  on  the  rushes  will  I  sleep, 
And  perchance  there  may  come  a  vision 
true 

Ere  day  create  the  world  anew." 
Slowly  Sir  Launfal's  eyes  grew  dim, 
Slumber  fell  like  a  cloud  on  him, 

And  into  his  soul  the  vision  flew. 

n. 

The  crows  flapped  over  by  twos  anjl 
threes, 

In  the  pool  drowsed  the  cattle  up  to 
their  knees, 
The  little  birds  sang  as  if  it  were 
The  one  day  of  summer  in  all  the  year, 
And  the  very  leaves  seemed  to  sing  on 

the  trees  : 
The  castle  alone  in  the  landscape  lay 
Like  an  outpost  of  winter,  dull  and 
gray: 

'T  was  the  proudest  hall  in  the  North 

Countree, 
And  never  its  gates  might  opened  be, 
Save  to  lord  or  lady  of  high  degree ; 
Summer  besieged  it  on  every  side, 
But  the  churlish  stone  her  assaults  de- 
tied; 

She  could  not  scale  the  chilly  wall, 
Though  around  it  for  leagues  her  pa- 
vilions tall 
Stretched  left  and  right, 
Over  the  hills  and  out  of  sight ; 
Green  and  broad  was  every  tent, 
And  out  of  each  a  murmur  went 
Till  the  breeze  fell  off  at  night. 

in. 

The  drawbridge  dropped  with  a  surly 
clang, 

And  through  the  dark  arch  a  charger 
sprang, 

Bearing  Sir  Launfal,  the  maiden  knight, 
In  his  gilded  mail,  that  flamed  so  bright 
It  seemed  the  dark  castle  had  gathered 
all 

Those  shafts  the  fierce  sun  had  shot  over 
its  wall 

In  his  siege  of  three  hundred  summers 
long, 

And,  binding  them  all  in  one  blazing 
sheaf, 

Had  cast  them  forth :  so,  young  and 
strong, 


THE  VISION  OF  SIR  LAUNFAL. 


109 


And  lightsome  as  a  locust-leaf, 
Sir  Launfal  flashed  forth  in  his  unscarred 
mail, 

To  seek  in  all  climes  for  the  Holy  Grail. 

IV. 

It  was  morning  on  hill  and  stream  and 
tree, 

And  morning  in  the  young  knight's 
heart ; 
Only  the  castle  moodily 
Rebuffed  the  gifts  of  the  sunshine  free, 

And  gloomed  by  itself  apart ; 
The  season  brimmed  all  other  things  up 
Full  as  the  rain  tills  the  pitcher-plant's 
cup. 

v. 

As  Sir  Launfal  made  morn  through  the 
darksome  gate, 
He  was  'ware  of  a  leper,  crouched  by 
the  same, 

"Who  begged  with  his  hand  and  moaned 

as  he  sate  ; 
And  a  loathing  over  Sir  Launfal  came  ; 
The  sunshine  went  out  of  his  soul  with 

a  thrill, 

The  flesh  'neath  his  armor  'gan  shrink 
and  crawl, 
And  midway  its  leap  his  heart  stood  still 

Like  a  frozen  waterfall ; 
For  this  man,  so  foul  and  bent  of  stature, 
Rasped  harshly  against  his  dainty  nature, 
And  seemed  the  one  blot  on  the  summer 
morn,  — 

So  he  tossed  him  a  piece  of  gold  in  scorn. 

VI. 

The  leper  raised  not  the  gold  from  the 
dust : 

"  Better  to  me  the  poor  man's  crust, 
Better  the  blessing  of  the  poor, 
Though  I  turn  me  empty  from  his  door ; 
That  is  no  true  alms  which  the  hand 

can  hold ; 
He  gives  nothing  but  worthless  gold 

Who  gives  from  a  sense  of  duty ; 
But  he  who  gives  but  a  slender  mite, 
And  gives  to  that  which  is  out  of  sight, 

That  thread  of   the  all-sustaining 
Beauty 

"Which  runs  through  all  and  doth  all 
unite,  — 

The  hand  cannot  clasp  the  whole  of  his 
alms, 

The  heart  outstretches  its  eager  palms, 


For  a  god  goes  with  it  and  makes  it 
store 

To  the  soul  that  was  starving  in  dark- 
ness before. " 


PRELUDE  TO  PART  SECOND. 

Down  swept  the  chill  wind  from  the 
mountain  peak, 
From  the  snow  five  thousand  summers 
old; 

On  open  wold  and  hill-top  bleak 
It  had  gathered  all  the  cold, 

And  whirled  it  like  sleet  on  the  wan- 
derer's cheek ; 

It  carried  a  shiver  everywhere 

From  the  unleafed  boughs  and  pastures 
bare; 

The  little  brook  heard  it  and  built  a  roof 
'Neath  which  he  could  house  him,  win- 
ter-proof ; 

All  night  by  the  white  stars'  frosty 
gleams 

He  groined  his  arches  and  matched  his 
beams ; 

Slender  and  clear  were  his  crystal  spars 
As  the  lashes  of  light  that  trim  the 
stars  : 

He  sculptured  every  summer  delight 
In  his  halls  and  chambers  out  of  sight ; 
Sometimes  his  tinkling  waters  slipt 
Down   through  a  frost-leaved  forest- 
crypt, 

Long,  sparkling  aisles  of  steel-stemmed 
trees 

Bending  to  counterfeit  a  breeze  ; 
Sometimes  the  roof  no  fretwork  knew 
But  silvery  mosses  that  downward  grew ; 
Sometimes  it  was  carved  in  sharp  relief 
With  quaint  arabesques  of  ice-fern  leaf ; 
Sometimes  it  was  simply  smooth  and 
clear 

For  the  gladness  of  heaven  to  shine 

through,  and  here 
He  had  caught  the  nodding  bulrush-tops 
And  hung  them  thickly  with  diamond 

drops, 

That  crystalled  the  beams  of  moon  and 
sun, 

And  made  a  star  of  every  one  : 
No  mortal  builder's  most  rare  device 
Could  match  this  winter-palace  of  ice  ; 
'T  was  as  if  every  image  that  mirrored 
lay 

In  his  depths  serene  through  the  sum- 
mer day, 


110  THE  VISION  OF 

Each  fleeting  shadow  of  earth  and  sky, 
Lest  the  happy  model  should  be  lost, 

Had  been  mimicked  in  fairy  masonry 
By  the  elnn  builders  of  the  frost. 

Within  the  hall  are  song  and  laughter, 
The  cheeks  of  Christmas  glow  red  and 
jolly, 

And  sprouting  is  every  corbel  nnd  rafter 
With  lightsome  green  of  ivy  and  holly ; 
Through  the  deep  gulf  of  the  chimney 
wide 

Wallows  the  Yule-log's  roaring  tide  ; 
The  broad  flame-pennons  droop  and  flap 
And  belly  and  tug  as  a  flag  in  the 
wind  ; 

Like  a  locust  shrills  the  imprisoned  sap, 
Hunted  to  death  in  its  galleries  blind ; 

And  swift  little  troops  of  silent  sparks, 
Now  pausing,  now  scattering  away  as 
in  fear, 

Go  threading  the  soot-forest's  tangled 
darks 

Like  herds  of  startled  deer. 

But  the  wind  without  was  eager  and 
sharp, 

Of  Sir  Launfal's  gray  hair  it  makes  a  harp, 
And  rattles  and  wrings 
The  icy  strings, 
Singing,  in  dreary  monotone, 
A  Christmas  carol  of  its  own, 
Whose  burden  still,  as  he  might  guess, 
Was — "Shelterless,  shelterless,  shel- 
terless ! " 

The  voice  of  the  seneschal  flared  like  a 
torch 

As  he  shouted  the  wanderer  away  from 
the  porch, 

And  he  sat  in  the  gateway  and  saw  all 
night 

The  great  hall-fire,  so  cheery  and  bold, 
Through  the  window-slits  of  the  cas- 
tle old, 

Build  out  its  piers  of  ruddy  light 
Against  the  drift  of  the  cold. 


PART  SECOND. 
I. 

There  was  never  a  leaf  on  bush  or  tree, 
The  bare  boughs  rattled  shudderingly ; 
The  river  was  dumb  and  could  not  speak, 
For  the  weaver  Winter  its  shroud  had 
spun ; 


SIR  LAUNFAL. 

A  single  crow  on  the  tree-top  bleak 
From  his  shining  feathers  shed  off  the 
cold  sun  ; 

Again  it  was  morning,  but  shrunk  and 
cold, 

As  if  her  veins  were  sapless  and  old, 

And  she  rose  up  decrepitly 

For  a  last  dim  look  at  earth  and  sea. 

II. 

Sir  Launfal  turned  from  his  own  hard 
gate, 

For  another  heir  in  his  earldom  sate  ; 
An  old,  bent  mnn,  worn  out  and  frail, 
He  came  back  from  seeking  the  Holy 
Grail ; 

Little  he  recked  of  his  earldom's  loss, 
No  more  on  his  surcoat  was  blazoned  the 
cross, 

But  deep  in  his  soul  the  sign  he  wore, 
The  badge  of  the  suffering  and  the  poor. 

in. 

Sir  Launfal's  raiment  thin  and  spare 
Was  idle  mail  'gainst  the  barbed  air, 
For  it  was  just  at  the  Christmas  time ; 
So  he  mused,  as  he  sat,  of  a  sunnier 
clime, 

And  sought  for  a  shelter  from  cold  and 
snow 

In  the  light  and  warmth  of  long-ago ; 
He  sees  the  snake-like  caravan  crawl 
O'er  the  edge  of  the  desert,  black  and 
small, 

Then  nearer  and  nearer,  till,  one  by  one, 
He  can  count  the  camels  in  the  sun, 
As  over  the  red-hot  sands  they  pass 
To  where,  in  its  slender  necklace  of  grass, 
The  little  spring  laughed  and  leapt  in 
the  shade, 

And  with  its  own  self  like  an  infant 
played, 

And  waved  its  signal  of  palms. 

IV. 

"  For  Christ's  sweet  sake,  I  beg  an 
alms" ;  — 

The  happy  camels  may  reach  the  spring, 
But  Sir  Launfal  sees  only  the  grewsome 
thing, 

The  leper,  lank  as  the  rain-blanched 
bone, 

That  cowers  beside  him,  a  thing  as  lone 
And  white  as  the  ice-isles  of  Northern 

seas 

In  the  desolate  horror  of  his  disease. 


THE  VISION  OF  SIR  LAUNFAL. 


Ill 


v. 

And  Sir  Lannfal  said,  —  "I  behold  in 
thee 

An  image  of  Him  who  died  on  the  tree ; 
Tltou  also  hast  had  thy  crown  of  thorns, — 
Thou  also  hast  had  the  world's  buffets  and 

scorns,  — 
And  to  thy  life  were  not  denied 
The  wounds  in  the  hands  and  feet  and 

side : 

Mild  Mary's  Son,  acknowledge  me ; 
Behold,  through  him,  I  give  to  thee ! " 

VI. 

Then  the  soul  of  the  leper  stood  up  in  his 
eyes 

And   looked  at  Sir    Launfal,  and 
straightway  he 
Remembered  in  what  a  haughtier  guise 

He  had  flung  an  alms  to  leprosie, 
"When  he  girt  his  young  life  up  in  gilded 
mail 

And  set  forth  in  search  of  the  Holy  Grail. 
The  heart  within  him  was  ashes  and  dust ; 
He  parted  in  twain  his  single  crust, 
He  broke  the  ice  on  the  streamlet's 
brink, 

And  gave  the  leper  to  eat  and  drink, 
'T  was  a  mouldy  crust  of  coarse  brown 
bread, 

'T  was  water  out  of  a  wooden  bowl,  — 
Yet  with  fine  wheaten  bread  was  the  leper 
fed, 

And  't  was  red  wine  he  drank  with  his 
thirsty  soul. 

VII. 

As  Sir  Launfal  mused  with  a  downcast 
face, 

A  light  shone  round  about  the  place ; 
The  leper  no  longer  crouched  at  his  side, 
But  stood  before  him  glorified, 
Shining  and  tall  and  fair  and  straight 
As  the  pillar  that  stood  by  the  Beautiful 
Gate,  — 

Himself  the  Gate  whereby  men  can 
Enter  the  temple  of  God  in  Man. 

VIII. 

His  words  were  shed  softer  than  leaves 

from  the  pine, 
And  they  fell  on  Sir  Launfal  as  snows  on 

the  brine, 

That  mingle  their  softness  and  quiet  in 
one 


With  the  shaggy  unrest  they  float  down 
upon ; 

And  the  voice  that  was  calmer  than 

silence  said, 
"  Lo  it  is  I,  be  not  afraid  ! 
In  many  climes,  without  avail, 
Thou  hast  spent  thy  life  for  the  Holy 

Grail; 

Behold,  it  is  here, — this  cup  which  thou 
Didst  fill  at  the  streamlet  for  me  but  now  ; 
This  crust  is  my  body  broken  for  thee, 
This  water  His  blood  that  died  on  the 
tree ; 

The  Holy  Supper  is  kept,  indeed, 
In  whatso  we  share  with  another's  need ; 
Not  what  we  give,  but  what  we  share,  — 
For  the  gift  without  the  giver  is  bare ; 
Who  gives  himself  with  his  alms  feeds 
three,  — 

Himself,  his  hungering  neighbor,  and 
me." 

IX. 

Sir  Launfal  awoke  as  from  a  swound  :  — 
' '  The  Grail  in  my  castle  here  is  found  ! 
Hang  my  idle  armor  up  on  the  wall, 
Let  it  be  the  spider's  banquet-hall ; 
He  must  be  fenced  with  stronger  mail 
Who  would  seek  and  find  the  Holy 
Grail." 

x. 

The  castle  gate  stands  open  now, 

And  the  wanderer  is  welcome  to  the 
hall 

As  the  hangbird  is  to  the  elm-tree  bough ; 

No  longer  scowl  the  turrets  tall, 
The  Summer's  long  siege  at  last  is  o'er  ; 
When  the  first  poor  outcast  went  in  at 

the  door, 
She  entered  with  him  in  disguise, 
And  mastered  the  fortress  by  surprise ; 
There  is  no  spot  she  loves  so  well  on 
ground, 

She  lingers  and  smiles  there  the  whole 

year  round ; 
The  meanest  serf  on  Sir  Launfal's  land 
Has  hall  and  bower  at  his  command ; 
And  there 's  no  poor  man  in  the  North 

Countree 

But  is  lord  of  the  earldom  as  much  as  he. 

NOTE.—  According  to  the  mythology  of  the 
Romancers,  the  San  Greal,  or  Holy  Grail,  was 
the  cup  out  of  which  J esus  partook  of  the  last 
supper  with  his  disciples.  It  was  brought  into 
England  by  Joseph  of  Arimathea,  and  remained 
there,  an  object  of  pilgrimage  and  adoration, 


112 


THE  VISION  OF  SIR  LAUNFAL. 


for  many  years  in  the  keeping  of  his  lineal  de- 
scendants. It  was  incumbent  upon  those  who 
had  charge  of  it  to  be  chaste  in  thought,  word, 
and  deed;  but  one  of  the  keepers  having 
broken  this  condition,  the  Holy  Grail  disap- 
peared. From  that  time  it  was  a  favorite  enter- 
prise of  the  knights  of  Arthur's  court  to  go  in 
search  of  it.  Sir  Galahad  was  at  last  success- 
ful in  finding  it,  as  may  be  read  in  the  seven- 
teenth book  of  the  Romance  of  King  Arthur. 


Tennj'son  has  made  Sir  Galahad  the  subject  of 
one  of  the  most  exquisite  of  his  poems. 

The  plot  (if  I  may  give  that  name  to  anything 
so  slight)  of  the  foregoing  poem  is  my  own,  and, 
to  serve  its  purposes,  I  have  enlarged  the  circle 
of  competition  in  search  of  the  miraculous  cup 
in  such  a  manner  as  to  include,  not  only  other 
persons  than  the  heroes  of  the  Round  Table, 
but  also  a  period  of  time  subsequent  to  the 
date  of  King  Arthur's  reign ! 


Reader  !  walk  up  at  once  (it  will  soon  be  too  late) 
and  buy  at  a  perfectly  ruinous  rate 


A 

FABLE  FOR  CRITICS; 

OR,  BETTER, 

(/  likey  as  a  thing  that  the  reader's  first  fancy  may  strike, 
an  old-fashioned  title-page, 
such  as  presents  a  tabular  view  of  the  volume's  contents, ) 

A  GLANCE 

AT  A  FEW  OF   OUR  LITERARY  PROGENIES 
{Mrs,  Malapropos  word) 

FROM 

THE  TUB  OF  DIOGENES; 

A  VOCAL  AND   MUSICAL  MEDLEY, 

THAT  IS, 

A  SERIES  OF  JOKES 

aSg  &  WLaxCXtviul  <&uth 

who  accompanies  himself  with  a  rub-a-dub-dub,  full  of  spirit  and  grace, 
on  the  top  of  the  tub. 

Set  forth  in  October,  the  31st  day, 

In  the  year  '48,  G.  P.  Putnam,  Broadway. 


TO 

CHARLES  F.  BRIGGS, 

THIS  VOLUME  IS  AFFECTIONATELY  INSCRIBED. 


A  FABLE  FOR  CRITICS. 


115 


It  being  the  commonest  mode  of  proced- 
ure, I  premise  a  few  candid  remarks 

To  the  Reader  :  — 

This  trifle,  begun  to  please  only  myself 
and  my  own  private  fancy,  was  laid  on  the 
shelf.  But  some  friends,  who  had  seen  it, 
induced  me,  by  dint  of  saying  they  liked 
it,  to  put  it  in  print.  That  is,  having 
come  to  that  very  conclusion,  I  consulted 
them  when  it  could  make  no  confusion. 
For  (though  in  the  gentlest  of  ways)  they 
had  hinted  it  was  scarce  worth  the  while, 
I  should  doubtless  have  printed  it. 

I  began  it,  intending  a  Fable,  a  frail, 
slender  thing,  rhyme-ywinged,  with  a  sting 
in  its  tail.  But,  by  addings  and  alter- 
ings  not  previously  planned,  —  digressions 
chance-hatched,  like  birds'  eggs  in  the 
sand,  —  and  dawdlings  to  suit  every  whim- 
sey's  demand  (always  freeing  the  bird 
which  I  held  in  my  hand,  for  the  two 
perched,  perhaps  out  of  reach,  in  the  tree), 
—  it  grew  by  degrees  to  the  size  which  you 
see.  I  was  like  the  old  woman  that  car- 
ried the  calf,  and  my  neighbors,  like  hers, 
no  doubt,  wonder  and  laugh,  and  when, 
my  strained  arms  with  their  grown  bur- 
then full,  I  call  it  my  Fable,  they  call  it  a 
bull. 

Having  scrawled  at  full  gallop  (as  far  as 
that  goes)  in  a  style  that  is  neither  good 
verse  nor  bad  prose,  and  being  a  person 
whom  nobody  knows,  some  people  will 
say  I  am  rather  more  free  with  my  readers 
than  it  is  becoming  to  be,  that  I  seem  to 
expect  them  to  wait  on  my  leisure  in  fol- 
lowing wherever  I  wander  at  pleasure, 
that,  in  short,  I  take  more  than  a  young 
author's  lawful  ease,  and  laugh  in  a  queer 
way  so  like  Mephistopheles,  that  the  pub- 
lic will  doubt,  as  they  grope  through  my 
rhythm,  if  in  truth  I  am  making  fun  at 
them  or  loith  them. 

So  the  excellent  Public  is  hereby  as- 
sured that  the  sale  of  my  book  is  already 
secured.  For  there  is  not  a  poet  through- 
out the  whole  land  but  will  purchase  a 
copy  or  two  out  of  hand,  in  the  fond  ex- 
pectation of  being  amused  in  it,  by  seeing 
his  betters  cut  up  and  abused  in  it.  Now, 
I  find,  by  a  pretty  exact  calculation,  there 
are  something  like  ten  thousand  bards  in 


the  nation,  of  that  special  variety  whom 
the  Review  and  Magazine  critics  call  lofty 
and  true,  and  about  thirty  thousand  {this 
tribe  is  increasing)  of  the  kinds  who  are 
termed  full  of  promise  and  pleasing.  The 
Public  will  see  by  a  glance  at  this  sched- 
ule, that  they  cannot  expect  me  to  be  over- 
sedulous  about  courting  them,  since  it 
seems  I  have  got  enough  fuel  made  sure  of 
for  boiling  my  pot. 

As  for  such  of  our  poets  as  find  not 
their  names  mentioned  once  in  my  pages, 
with  praises  or  blames,  let  them  send  in 
their  cards,  without  further  delay,  to 
my  friend  G.  P.  Putnam,  Esquire,  in 
Broadway,  where  a  list  will  be  kept  with 
the  strictest  regard  to  the  day  and  the 
hour  of  receiving  the  card.  Then,  taking 
them  up  as  I  chance  to  have  time  (that  is, 
if  their  names  can  be  twisted  in  rhyme), 
I  will  honestly  give  each  his  proper  po- 
sition, at  the  rate  of  one  author  to  each 
new  edition.  Thus  a  PREMIUM  is  of- 
fered sufficiently  high  (as  the  magazines 
say  when  they  tell  their  best  lie)  to  induce 
bards  to  club  their  resources  and  buy  the 
balance  of  every  edition,  until  they  have 
all  of  them  fairly  been  run  through  the 
mill. 

One  word  to  such  readers  (judicious  and 
wise)  as  read  books  with  something  behind 
the  mere  eyes,  of  whom  in  the  country, 
perhaps,  there  are  two,  including  myself, 
gentle  reader,  and  you.  All  the  characters 
sketched  in  this  slight  jeu  oV  esprit,  though, 
it  may  be,  they  seem,  here  and  there, 
rather  free,  and  drawn  from  a  Mephisto- 
phelian  standpoint,  are  meant  to  be  faith- 
ful, and  that  is  the  grand  point,  and  none 
but  an  owl  would  feel  sore  at  a  rub  from 
a  jester  who  tells  you,  without  any  subter- 
fuge, that  he  sits  in  Diogenes'  tub. 


A  PRELIMINARY  *NOTE   TO  THE 
SECOND  EDITION, 

though  it  well  maybe  reckoned,  of  all  com- 
position, the  species  at  once  most  delight- 
ful and  healthy,  is  a  thing  which  an  au- 
thor, unless  he  be  wealthy  and  willing  to 


116 


A  FABLE  FOR  CRITICS. 


pay  for  that  kind  of  delight,  is  not,  in  all 
instances,  called  on  to  write.  Though 
there  are,  it  is  said,  who,  their  spirits  to 
cheer,  slip  in  a  new  title-page  three  times 
a  year,  and  in  this  way  snuff  up  an  imagi- 
nary savor  of  that  sweetest  of  dishes,  the 
popular  favor,  —  much  as  if  a  starved 
painter  should  fall  to  and  treat  the  Ugo- 
lino  inside  to  a  picture  of  meat. 

You  remember  (if  not,  pray  turn  over 
and  look)  that,  in  writing  the  preface  which 
ushered  my  book,  I  treated  you,  excel- 
lent Public,  not  merely  with  a  cool  disre- 
gard, but  downright  cavalierly.  Now  I 
would  not  take  back  the  least  thing  I  then 
said,  though  I  thereby  could  butter  both 
sides  of  my  bread,  for  I  never  could  see 
that  an  author  owed  aught  to  the  people 
he  solaced,  diverted,  or  taught  ;  and,  as 
for  mere  fame,  I  have  long  ago  learned 
that  the  persons  by  whom  it  is  finally 
earned  are  those  with  whom  your  verdict 
weighed  not  a  pin,  unsustained  by  the 
higher  court  sitting  within. 

But  I  wander  from  what  I  intended  to 
say,  —  that  you  have,  namely,  shown  such 
a  liberal  way  of  thinking,  and  so  much 
aesthetic  perception  of  anonymous  wrorth 
in  the  handsome  reception  you  gave  to  my 
book,  spite  of  some  private  piques  (having 
bought  the  first  thousand  in  barely  two 
weeks),  that  I  think,  past  a  doubt,  if  you 
measured  the  phiz  of  yours  most  devotedly, 
Wonderful  Quiz,  you  would  find  that  its 
vertical  section  was  shorter,  by  an  inch 
and  two  tenths,  or  'twixt  that  and  a 
quarter. 

You  have  watched  a  child  playing  — in 
those  wondrous  years  when  belief  is  not 
bound  to  the  eyes  and  the  ears,  and  the 
vision  divine  is  so  clear  and  unmarred, 
that  each  baker  of  pies  in  the  dirt  is  a 
bard  ?  Give  a  knife  and  a  shingle,  he  fits 
out  a  fleet,  and,  on  that  little  mud-puddle 
over  the  street,  his  invention,  in  purest 
good  faith,  will  make  sail  round  the  globe 
with  a  puff  of  his  breath  for  a  gale,  will 
visit  in  barely  ten  minutes,  all  climes,  and 
find  Northwestern  passages  hundreds  of 
times.  Or,  suppose  the  young  Poet  fresh 
stored  with  delights  from  that  Bible  of 
childhood,  the  Arabian  Nights,  he  will  turn 
to  a  crony  and  cry,  "Jack,  let's  play  that 
I  am  a  Genius !  "  Jacky  straightway  makes 
Aladdin's  lamp  out  of  a  stone,  and,  for 
hours,  they  enjoy  each  his  own  supernat- 
ural powers.  This '  is  all  very  pretty  and 
pleasant,  but  then  suppose  our  two  ur- 
chins have  grown  into  men,  and  both  have 
turned  authors,  —  one  says  to  his  brother, 
"  Let 's  play  we  're  the  American  some- 
things or  other,  —  say  Homer  or  Sopho- 
cles, Goethe  or  Scott  (only  let  them  be 


big  enough,  no  matter  what).  Come,  you 
shall  be  Byron  or  Pope,  which  you  choose  : 
I  '11  be  Coleridge,  and  both  shall  write 
mutual  reviews."  So  they  both  (as  mere 
strangers)  before  many  days  send  each 
other  a  cord  of  anonymous  bays.  Each, 
piling  his  epithets,  smiles  in  his  sleeve 
to  see  what  his  friend  can  be  made  to  be- 
lieve ;  each,  reading  the  other's  unbiassed 
review,  thinks  —  Here 's  pretty  high  praise, 
but  no  more  than  is  true.  Well,  we  laugh 
at  them  both,  and  yet  make  no  great  fuss 
when  the  same  farce  is  acted  to  benefit  us. 
Even  I,  who,  if  asked,  scarce  a  month 
since,  what  Fudge  meant,  should  have  an- 
swered, the  dear  Public's  critical  judg- 
ment, begin  to  think  sharp-witted  Horace 
spoke  sooth  when  he  said,  that  the  Public 
sometimes  hit  the  truth. 

In  reading  these  lines,  you  perhaps  have 
a  vision  of  a  person  in  pretty  good  health 
and  condition,  and  yet,  since  I  put  forth 
my  primary  edition,  I  have  been  crushed, 
scorched,  withered,  used  up  and  put  down 
(by  Smith  with  the  cordial  assistance  of 
Brown),  in  all,  if  you  put  any  faith  in  my 
rhymes,  to  the  number  of  ninety-five  sev- 
eral times,  and,  while  I  am  writing,  —  I 
tremble  to  think  of  it,  for  I  may  at  this 
moment  be  just  on  the  brink  of  it,  —  Mo- 
lybdostom,  angry  at  being  omitted,  has 
begun  a  critique,  —  am  I  not  to  be 
pitied  ?  * 

Now  I  shall  not  crush  them  since,  in- 
deed, for  that  matter,  no  pressure  I  know 
of  could  render  them  flatter ;  nor  wither, 
nor  scorch  them,  —  no  action  of  fire  could 
make  either  them  or  their  articles  drier  ; 
nor  waste  time  in  putting  them  down  — 
I  am  thinking  not  their  own  self-inflation 
will  keep  them  from  sinking  ;  for  there 's 
this  contradiction  about  the  whole  bevy,  — 
though  without  the  least  weight,  they  are 
awfully  heavy.  No,  my  dear  honest  bore, 
surdo  fabulam  narras,  they  are  no  more 
to  me  than  a  rat  in  the  arras.  I  can  walk 
with  the  Doctor,  get  facts  from  the  Don, 
or  draw  out  the  Lambish  quintessence  of 
John,  and  feel  nothing  more  than  a  half- 
comic  sorrow,  to  think  that  they  all  will 
be  lying  to-morrow  tossed  carelessly  up  on 
the  waste-paper  shelves,  and  forgotten  by 
all  but  their  half-dozen  selves.  Once  snug 
in  my  attic,  my  fire  in  a  roar,  I  leave  the 
whole  pack  of  them  outside  the  door. 
With  Hakluyt  or  Purchas  I  wander  away 
to  the  black  northern  seas  or  barbaric 
Cathay  ;  get/on  with  O'Shanter,  and  sober 
me  then  with  that  builder  of  brick-kilnish 

*  The  wise  Scandinavians  probably  called 
their  bards  by  the  queer-looking  title  of  Scald, 
in  a  delicate  way,  as  it  were,  just  to  hint  to  the 
world  the  hot  water  they  always  get  into. 


A  FABLE  FOR  CRITICS. 


117 


dramas,  rare  Ben ;  snuff  Herbert,  as  holy 
as  a  flower  on  a  grave  ;  with  Fletcher  wax 
tender,  o'er  Chapman  grow  brave  ;  with 
Marlowe  or  Kyd  take  a  tine  poet-rave  ;  in 
Very,  most  Hebrew  of  Saxons,  find  peace  ; 
with  Lyciclas  welter  on  vext  Irish  seas ; 
with  Webster  grow  wild,  and  climb  earth- 
ward again,  down  by  mystical  Browne's 
Jacob's-ladder-like  brain,  to  that  spiritual 
Pepys  (Cotton's  version)  Montaigne  ;  find 
a  new  depth  in  Wordsworth,  undreamed 
of  before,  —  that  divinely  inspired,  wise, 
deep,  tender,  grand  —  bore.  Or,  out  of 
my  study,  the  scholar  thrown  off,  Nature 
holds  up  her  shield  'gainst  the  sneer  and 
the  scoff ;  the  landscape,  forever  consoling 
and  kind,  pours  her  wine  and  her  oil  on 
the  smarts  of  the  mind.  The  waterfall, 
scattering  its  vanishing  gems  ;  the  tall 
grove  of  hemlocks,  with  moss  on  their 
stems,  like  plashes  of  sunlight ;  the  pond 
in  the  woods,  where  no  foot  but  mine  and 
the  bittern's  intrudes  ;  these  are  all  my 
kind  neighbors,  and  leave  me  no  wish  to 
say  aught  to  you  all,  my  poor  critics,  but 
—  pish !  I  have  buried  the  hatchet :  I  am 
twisting  an  allumette  out  of  one  of  you 
now,  and  relighting  my  calumet.  In  your 
private  capacities,  come  when  you  please, 
I  will  give  you  my  hand  and  a  fresh  pipe 
apiece. 

As  I  ran  through  the  leaves  of  my  poor 
little  book,  to  take  a  fond  author's  first 
tremulous  look,  it  was  quite  an  excitement 
to  hunt  the  errata,  sprawled  in  as  birds' 
tracks  are  in  some  kinds  of  strata  (only 
these  made  things  crookeder).  Fancy  an 
heir  that  a  father  had  seen  born  well-fea- 
tured and  fair,  turning  suddenly  wry-nosed, 
club-footed,  squint-eyed,  hair-lipped,  wap- 
per-jawed,  carrot-haired,  from  a  pride  be- 
come an  aversion,  — my  case  was  yet  worse. 
A  club-foot  (by  way  of  a  change)  in  a  verse, 


I  might  have  forgiven,  an  o's  being  wry, 
a  limp  in  an  e,  or  a  cock  in  an  i,  —  but  to 
have  the  sweet  babe  of  my  brain  served  in 
pi  !  I  am  not  queasy-stomached,  but  such 
a  Thyestean  banquet  as  that  was  quite  out 
of  the  question. 

In  the  edition  now  issued,  no  pains  are 
neglected,  and  my  verses,  as  orators  say, 
stand  corrected.  Yet  some  blunders  re- 
main of  the  public's  own  make,  which  I 
wish  to  correct  for  my  personal  sake. 
For  instance,  a  character  drawn  in  pure 
fun  and  condensing  the  traits  of  a  dozen 
in  one,  has  been,  as  I  hear,  by  some  per- 
sons applied  to  a  good  friend  of  mine, 
whom  to  stab  in  the  side,  as  we  walked 
along  chatting  and  joking  together,  would 
not  be  my  way.  I  can  hardly  tell  whether 
a  question  will  ever  arise  in  which  he  and 
I  should  by  any  strange  fortune  agree, 
but  meanwhile  my  esteem  for  him  grows 
as  I  know  him,  and,  though  not  the  best 
judge  on  earth  of  a  poem,  he  knows  what 
it  is  he  is  saying  and  why,  and  is  honest 
and  fearless,  two  good  points  which  I 
have  not  found  so  rife  I  can  easily  smother 
my  love  for  them,  whether  on  my  side  or 
t'  other. 

For  my  other  anonymi,  you  may  be  sure 
that  I  know  what  is  meant  by  a  carica- 
ture, and  what  by  a  portrait.  There  are 
those  who  think  it  is  capital  fun  to  be 
spattering  their  ink  on  quiet,  unquarrel- 
some  folk,  but  the  minute  the  game 
changes  sides  and  the  others  begin  it,  they 
see  something  savage  and  horrible  in  it. 
As  for  me  I  respect  neither  women  nor 
men  for  their  gender,  nor  own  any  sex  in 
a  pen.  I  choose  just,  to  hint  to  some 
causeless  unfriends  that,  as  far  as  I  know, 
there  are  always  two  ends  (and  one  of 
them  heaviest,  too)  to  a  staff,  and  two 
parties  also  to  every  good  laugh. 


A  FABLE  FOR  CRITICS. 


Phosbus,  sitting  one  day  in  a  laurel- 
tree's  shade, 

Was  reminded  of  Daphne,  of  whom  it 
was  made, 

For  the  god  being  one  day  too  warm  in 
his  wooing, 

She  took  to  the  tree  to  escape  his  pur- 
suing ; 

Be  the  cause  what  it  might,  from  his 

offers  she  shrunk, 
And,  Ginevra-like,  shut  herself  up  in 

a  trunk ; 

And,  though  't  was  a  step  into  which  he 
had  driven  her, 

He  somehow  or  other  had  never  for- 
given her ; 

Her  memory  he  nursed  as  a  kind  of 
a  tonic, 

Something  bitter  to  chew  when  he'd 

play  the  Byronic, 
And  I  can't  count  the  obstinate  nymphs 

that  he  brought  over 
By  a  strange  kind  of  smile  he  put  on 

when  he  thought  of  her. 
"  My  case  is  like  Dido's,"  he  sometimes 

remarked ; 
"When  I  last  saw  my  love,  she  was 

fairly  embarked 
In  a  laurel,  as  she  thought  —  but  (ah, 

how  Fate  mocks !) 
She  has  found  it  by  this  time  a  very 

bad  box ; 

Let  hunters  from  me  take  this  saw  when 

they  need  it,  — 
You're  not  always  sure  of  your  game 

when  you 've  treed  it. 
J ust  conceive  such  a  change  taking  place 

in  one's  mistress  ! 
What  romance  would  be  left?  —  who 

can  flatter  or  kiss  trees? 
And,  for  mercy's  sake,  how  could  one 

keep  up  a  dialogue 
With  a  dull  wooden  thing  that  will  live 

and  will  die  a  log,  — 


Not  to  say  that  the  thought  would  for- 
ever intrude 

That  you 've  less  chance  to  win  her  the 
more  she  is  wood  ? 

Ah  !  it  went  to  my  heart,  and  the  mem- 
ory still  grieves, 

To  see  those  loved  graces  all  taking 
their  leaves ; 

Those  charms  beyond  speech,  so  en- 
chanting but  now, 

As  they  left  me  forever,  each  making 
its  bough ! 

If  her  tongue  had  a  tang  sometimes 
more  than  was  right, 

Her  new  bark  is  worse  than  ten  times 
her  old  bite." 

Now,  Daphne  —  before  she  was  hap- 
pily treeified  — 
Over  all  other  blossoms  the  lily  had 
deified, 

And  when  she  expected  the  god  on  a 
visit 

('T  was  before  he  had  made  his  inten- 
tions explicit), 

Some  buds  she  arranged  with  a  vast 
deal  of  care, 

To  look  as  if  artlessly  twined  in  her  hair, 

Where  they  seemed,  as  he  said,  when 
he  paid  his  addresses, 

Like  the  day  breaking  through  the  long 
night  of  her  tresses  ; 

So  whenever  he  wished  to  be  quite  irre- 
sistible, 

Like  a  man  with  eight  trumps  in  his 
hand  at  a  whist-table 

(I  feared  me  at  first  that  the  rhyme  was 
untwistable, 

Though  I  might  have  lugged  in  an  allu- 
sion to  Cristabel),  — 

He  would  take  up  a  lily,  and  gloomily 
look  in  it, 

As  I  shall  at  the  ,  when  they  cut 

up  my  book  in  it. 


120 


A  FABLE  FOR  CRITICS. 


Well,  here,  after  all  the  bad  rhyme 
I  've  been  spinning, 
I've  got  back  at  last  to  my  story's  begin 
ning : 

Sitting  there,  as  I  say,  in  the  shade  of 
his  mistress, 

As  dull  as  a  volume  of  old  Chester  mys- 
teries, 

Or  as  those  puzzling  specimens  which, 
in  old  histories, 

We  read  of  his  verses  —  the  Oracles, 
namely,  — 

(I  wonder  the  Greeks  should  have  swal- 
lowed them  tamely, 

For  one  might  bet  safely  whatever  he 
has  to  risk, 

They  were  laid  at  his  door  by  some 
ancient  Miss  Asterisk, 

And  so  dull  that  the  men  who  retailed 
them  out-doors 

Got  the  ill  name  of  augurs,  because 
they  were  bores,  — ) 

First,  he  mused  what  the  animal  sub- 
stance or  herb  is 

Would  induce  a  mustache,  for  you 
know  he 's  imberbis  ; 

Then  he  shuddered  to  think  how  his 
youthful  position 

Was  assailed  by  the  age  of  his  son  the 
physician  ; 

At  some  poems  he  glanced,  had  been 
sent  to  him  lately, 

And  the  metre  and  sentiment  puzzled 
him  greatly  ; 

"Mehercle!  I'd  make  such  proceed- 
ing felonious,  — 

Have  they  all  of  them  slept  in  the  cave 
of  Trophonius  ? 

Look  well  to  your  seat,  't  is  like  taking 
an  airing 

On  a  corduroy  road,  and  that  out  of  re- 
pairing ; 

It  leads  one,  'tis  true,  through  the 
primitive  forest, 

Grand  natural  features,  but  then  one 
has  no  rest ; 

You  just  catch  a  glimpse  of  some  rav- 
ishing distance, 

When  a  jolt  puts  the  whole  of  it  out  of 
existence,  — 

Why  not  use  their  ears,  if  they  happen 
to  have  any  ? " 

—  Here  the  laurel-leaves  murmured  the 
name  of  poor  Daphne. 

"0,  weep  with  me,  Daphne,"  he 
sighed,  "for  you  know  it's 


A  terrible  thing  to  be  pestered  with 
poets  ! 

But,  alas,  she  is  dumb,  and  the  proverb 

holds  good, 
She  never  will  cry  till  she 's  out  of  the 

wood  ! 

What  would  n't  I  give  if  I  never  had 

known  of  her  ? 
'T  were  a  kind  of  relief  had  I  something 

to  groan  over  : 
If  I  had  but  some  letters  of  hers,  now, 

to  toss  over, 
I  might  turn  for  the  nonce  a  Byronic 

philosopher, 
And  bewitch  all  the  flats  by  bemoaning 

the  loss  of  her. 
One  needs  something  tangible,  though, 

to  begin  on,  — 
A  loom,  as  it  were,  for  the  fancy  to 

spin  on  ; 

What  boots  all  your  grist  ?  it  can  never 
be  ground 

Till  a  breeze  makes  the  arms  of  the 
windmill  go  round, 

(Or,  if 't  is  a  water-mill,  alter  the  meta- 
phor, 

And  say  it  won't  stir,  save  the  wheel  be 

well  wet  afore, 
Or  lug  in  some  stuff  about  water  "so 

dreamily,"  — 
It  is  not  a  metaphor,  though,  't  is  a 

simile)  ; 

A  lily,  perhaps,  would  set  my  mill 
a-going^ 

For  just  at  this  season,  I  think,  they 

are  blowing. 
Here,  somebody,  fetch  one;  not  very 

far  hence 

They're  in  bloom  by  the  score,  'tis  but 
climbing  a  fence  ; 

There 's  a  poet  hard  by,  who  does  noth- 
ing but  fill  his 

Whole  garden,  from  one  end  to  t'  other, 
with  lilies  ; 

A  very  good  plan,  were  it  not  for  sati- 
ety, 

One  longs  for  a  weed  here  and  there, 

for  variety ; 
Though  a  weed  is  no  more  than  a  flower 

in  disguise, 
Which  is  seen  through  at  once,  if  love 

give  a  man  eyes." 

Now  there  happened  to  be  among 
Phoebus's  followers, 
A  gentleman,  one  of  the  omnivorous 
swallowers, 


A  FABLE  FOE  CRITICS. 


121 


Who  bolt  every  book  that  comes  out  of 
the  press, 

Without  the  least  question  of  larger  or 
less, 

Whose  stomachs  are  strong  at  the  ex- 
pense of  their  head, — 

For  reading  new  books  is  like  eating 
new  bread, 

One  can  bear  it  at  first,  but  by  gradual 
steps  he 

Is  brought  to  death's  door  of  a  mental 
dyspepsy. 

On  a  previous  stage  of  existence,  our 
Hero 

Had  ridden  outside,  with  the  glass  be- 
low zero ; 

He  had  been,  't  is  a  fact  you  may  safely 
rely  on, 

Of  a  very  old  stock  a  most  eminent 
scion,  — 

A  stock  all  fresh  quacks  their  fierce 
boluses  ply  on, 

Who  stretch  the  new  boots  Earth 's  un- 
willing to  try  on, 

Whom  humbugs  of  all  shapes  and  sorts 
keep  their  eye  on 

Whose  hair  's  in  the  mortar  of  every 
new  Zion, 

Who,  when  whistles  are  dear,  go  directly 

and  buy  one. 
Who  think  slavery  a  crime  that  we 

must  not  say  fie  on, 
Who  hunt,  if  they  e'er  hunt  at  all,  with 

the  lion 

(Though  they  hunt  lions  also,  whenever 
they  spy  one), 

Who  contrive  to  make  every  good  for- 
tune a  wry  one, 

And  at  last  choose  the  hard  bed  of  honor 
to  die  on, 

Whose  pedigree,  traced  to  earth's  earli- 
est years, 

Is  longer  than  anything  else  but  their 
ears ;  — 

In  short,  he  was  sent  into  life  with  the 
wrong  key, 

He  unlocked  the  door,  and  stept  forth 
a  poor  donkey. 

Though  kicked  and  abused  by  his  bi- 
pedal betters 

Yet  he  filled  no  mean  place  in  the  king- 
dom of  letters  ; 

Far  happier  than  many  a  literary  hack, 

He  bore  only  paper-mill  rags  on  his 
back 

(For  it  makes  a  vast  difference  which 
side  the  mill 


One  expends  on  the  paper  his  labor  and 
skill); 

So,  when  his  soul  waited  a  new  trans- 
migration, 

And  Destiny  balanced  'twixt  this  and 
that  station, 

Not  having  much  time  to  expend  upon 
bothers, 

Remembering  he 'd  had  some  connec- 
tion with  authors, 

And  considering  his  four  legs  had  grown 
paralytic,  — 

She  set  him  on  two,  and  he  came  forth 
a  critic. 

Through  his  babyhood  no  kind  of 
pleasure  he  took 

In  any  amusement  but  tearing  a  book ; 

For  him  there  was  no  intermediate  stage 

From  babyhood  up  to  straight-laced 
middle  age  ; 

There  were  years  when  he  did  n't  wear 
coat-tails  behind, 

But  a  boy  he  could  never  be  rightly  de- 
fined ; 

Like  the  Irish  Good  Folk,  though  in 
•  length  scarce  a  span, 

From  the  womb  he  came  gravely,  a  lit- 
tle old  man  ; 

While  other  boys'  trousers  demanded 
the  toil 

Of  the  motherly  fingers  on  all  kinds  of 
soil, 

Red,    yellow,   brown,    black,  clayey, 

gravelly,  loamy, 
He  sat  in  the  corner  and  read  Viri 

Romse. 

He  never  was  known  to  unbend  or  to 
revel  once 

In  base,  marbles,  hockey,  or  kick  up 

the  devil  once ; 
He  was  just  one  of  those  who  excite  the 

benevolence 
Of  your  old  prigs  who  sound  the  soul's 

depths  with  a  ledger, 
And  are  on  the  lookout  for  some  young 

men  to  "edger- 
cate,"  as  they  call  it,  who  won't  be  too 

costly, 

And  who  '11  afterward  take  to  the  min- 
istry mostly ; 

Who  always  wear  spectacles,  always 
look  bilious, 

Always  keep  on  good  terms  with  each 
mater -familias 

Throughout  the  whole  parish,  and  man- 
age to  rear 


122 


A  FABLE  FOR  CELTICS. 


Ten  boys  like  themselves,  on  four  hun- 
dred a  year : 

Who,  fulfilling  in  turn  the  same  fearful 
conditions, 

Either  preach  through  their  noses,  or  go 
upon  missions. 

In  this  way  our  hero  got  safely  to  col- 
lege, 

Where  he  bolted  alike  both  his  com- 
mons and  knowledge  ; 

A  reading-machine,  always  wound  up 
and  going, 

He  mastered  whatever  was  not  worth 
the  knowing, 

Appeared  in  a  gown,  and  a  vest  of  black 
satin, 

To  spout  such  a  Gothic  oration  in  Latin 
That  Tully  could  never  have  made  out  a 
word  in  it 

(Though  himself  was  the  model  the  au- 
thor preferred  in  it), 

And  grasping  the  parchment  which  gave 
him  in  fee 

All  the  mystic  and-so-forths  contained 
in  A.  B., 

He  was  launched  (life  is  always  com- 
pared to  a  sea), 

With  just  enough  learning,  and  skill 
for  the  using  it, 

To  prove  he  'd  a  brain,  by  forever  con- 
fusing it. 

So  worthy  St.  Benedict,  piously  burn- 
ing 

With  the  holiest  zeal  against  secular 
learning, 

Nesciensque  scienter,  as  writers  express 
it, 

Tadoctusque  sapienter  a  Roma  recessit. 

'T  would  be  endless  to  tell  you  the 
things  that  he  knew, 
All  separate  facts,  undeniably  true, 
But  with  him  or  each  other  they  'd 

nothing  to  do  ; 
No  power  of  combining,  arranging,  dis- 
cerning, 

Digested  the  masses  he  learned  into 
learning ; 

There  was  one  thing  in  life  he  had  prac- 
tical knowledge  for 

(And  this,  you  will  think,  he  need  scarce 
go  to  college  for),  — 

Not  a  deed  would  he  do,  nor  a  word 
would  he  utter, 

Till  he 'd  weighed  its  relations  to  plain 
bread  and  butter. 


When  he  left  Alma  Mater,  he  practised 
his  wits 

In   compiling  the  journals'  historical 

bits,— 

Of  shops  broken  open,  men  falling  in 
fits, 

Great  fortunes  in  England  bequeathed 

to  poor  printers, 
And  cold  spells,  the  coldest  for  many 

past  winters,  — 
Then,  rising  by  industry,  knack,  and 

address, 

Got  notices  up  for  an  unbiassed  press, 
With  a  mind  so  well  poised,  it  seemed 

equally  made  for 
Applause  or  abuse,  just  which  chanced 

to  be  paid  for  : 
From  this  point  his  progress  was  rapid 

and  sure, 

To  the  post  of  a  regular  heavy  reviewer. 

And  here  I  must  say  he  wrote  excel- 
lent articles 

On  the  Hebraic  points,  or  the  force  of 
Greek  particles, 

They  filled  up  the  space  nothing  else 
was  prepared  for; 

And  nobody  read  that  which  nobody 
cared  for; 

If  any  old  book  reached  a  fiftieth  edi- 
tion, 

He  could  fill  forty  pages  with  safe  eru- 
dition : 

He  could  gauge  the  old  books  by  the  old 

set  of  rules, 
And  his  very  old  nothings  pleased  very 

old  fools  ; 

But  give  him  a  new  book,  fresh  out  of 
the  heart, 

And  you  put  him  at  sea  without  com- 
pass or  chart,  — 

His  blunders  aspired  to  the  rank  of  an 
art ; 

For  his  lore  was  engraft,  something  for- 
eign that  grew  in  him, 

Exhausting  the  sap  of  the  native  and 
true  in  him, 

So  that  when  a  man  came  with  a  soul 
that  was  new  in  him, 

Carving  new  forms  of  truth  out  of  Na- 
ture's old  granite, 

New  and  old  at  their  birth,  like  Le 
Verrier's  planet, 

Which,  to  get  a  true  judgment,  them- 
selves must  create 

In  the  soul  of  their  critic  the  measure 
and  weight, 


A  FABLE  FOR  CRITICS. 


123 


Being  rather  themselves  a  fresh  stand- 
ard of  grace, 

To  compute  their  own  judge,  and  assign 
him  his  place, 

Our  reviewer  would  crawl  all  about  it 
and  round  it, 

And,  reporting  each  circumstance  just 
as  he  found  it, 

"Without  the  least  malice,  —  his  record 
would  be 

Profoundly  aesthetic  as  that  of  a  flea, 
Which,  supping  on  Wordsworth,  should 

print,  for  our  sakes, 
Recollections  of  nights  with  the  Bard  of 

the  Lakes, 
Or,  lodged  by  an  Arab  guide,  ventured 

to  render  a 
General  view  of  the  ruins  at  Denderah. 

As  I  said,  he  was  never  precisely  un- 
kind, 

The  defect  in  his  brain  was  just  absence 
of  mind  ; 

If  he  boasted,  't  was  simply  that  he  was 
self-made, 

A  position  which  I,  for  one,  never  gain- 
said, 

My  respect  for  my  Maker  supposing  a 
skill 

In  his  works  which  our  Hero  would  an- 
swer but  ill ; 

And  I  trust  that  the  mould  which  he 
used  may  be  cracked,  or  he, 

Made  bold  by  success,  may  enlarge  his 
phylactery, 

And  set  up  a  kind  of  a  man-manufac- 
tory, — 

An  event  which  I  shudder  to  think 

about,  seeing 
That  Man  is  a  moral,  accountable  being. 

He  meant  well  enough,  but  was  still 
in  the  way, 
As  a  dunce  always  is,  let  him  be  where 
he  may  ; 

Indeed,  they  appear  to  come  into  exist- 
ence 

To  impede  other  folks  with  their  awk- 
ward assistance  ; 

If  you  set  up  a  dunce  on  the  very  North 
pole 

All  alone  with  himself,  I  believe,  on  my 
soul, 

He 'd  manage  to  get  betwixt  somebody's 
shins, 

And  pitch  him  down  bodily,  all  in  his 
sins. 


To  the  grave  polar  bears  sitting  round 

on  the  ice, 
All  shortening  their  grace,  to  be  in  for 

a  slice ; 

Or,  if  he  found  nobody  else  there  to 
pother, 

Why,  one  of  his  legs  would  just  trip  up 
the  other, 

For  there  's  nothing  we  read  of  in  tor- 
ture's inventions, 

Like  a  well-meaning  dunce,  with  the 
best  of  intentions. 

A  terrible  fellow  to  meet  in  soci- 
ety, 

Not  the  toast  that  he  buttered  was  ever 

so  dry  at  tea  ; 
There  he  'd  sit  at  the  table  and  stir  in 

his  sugar, 

Crouching  close  for  a  spring,  all  the 
while,  like  a  cougar  ; 

Be  sure  of  your  facts,  of  your  measures 
and  weights, 

Of  your  time,  —  he 's  as  fond  as  an  Arab 
of  dates  ;  — 

You  '11  be  telling,  perhaps,  in  your  com- 
ical way, 

Of  something  you 've  seen  in  the  course 
of  the  day ; 

And,  just  as  you  're  tapering  out  the 
conclusion, 

You  venture  an  ill-fated  classic  allu- 
sion, — 

The  girls  have  all  got  their  laughs  ready, 
when,  whack  ! 

The  cougar  comes  down  on  your  thun- 
derstruck back  ! 

You  had  left  out  a  comma,  —  your 
Greek  's  put  in  joint, 

And  pointed  at  cost  of  your  story's 
whole  point. 

In  the  course  of  the  evening,  you  ven- 
ture on  certain 

Soft  speeches  to  Anne,  in  the  shade  of 
the  curtain  : 

You  tell  her  your  heart  can  be  likened 
to  one  flower, 

"And  that,  0  most  charming  of  wo- 
men 's  the  sunflower, 

Which  turns  "  —  here  a  clear  nasal  voice, 
to  your  terror, 

From  outside  the  curtain,  says,  "  That 's 
all  an  error." 

As  for  him,  he 's  —  no  matter,  he  never 
grew  tender, 

Sitting  after  a  ball,  with  his  feet  on  the 
fender, 


124 


A  FABLE  FOR  CRITICS. 


Shaping  somebody's  sweet  features  out 

of  cigar  smoke 
(Though  he 'd  willingly  grant  you  that 

such  doings  are  smoke) ; 
All  women  he  damns  with  mutabile 
semper, 

And  if  ever  he  felt  something  like  love's 
distemper, 

'T  was  towards  a  young  lady  who  spoke 
ancient  Mexican, 

And  assisted  her  father  in  making  a  lex- 
icon ; 

Though  I  recollect  hearing  him  get 

quite  ferocious 
About  Mary  Clausum,  the  mistress  of 

Grotius, 

Or  something  of  that  sort,  —  but,  no 

more  to  bore  ye 
With  character-painting,  I  '11  turn  to 

my  story. 

Now,  Apollo,  who  finds  it  conven- 
ient sometimes 
To  get  his  court  clear  of  the  makers  of 
rhymes, 

The  genus ,  I  think  it  is  called,  irritabile, 
Every  one  of  whom  thinks  himself 

treated  most  shabbily, 
And  nurses  a  —  what  is  it?  —  immedi- 

cabile, 

Which  keeps  him  at  boiling-point,  hot 

for  a  quarrel, 
As  bitter  as  wormwood,  and  sourer  than 

sorrel, 

If  any  poor  devil  but  look  at  a  laurel ;  — 
Apollo,  I  say,  being  sick  of  their  riot- 
ing 

(Though  he  sometimes  acknowledged 
their  verse  had  a  quieting 

Effect  after  dinner,  and  seemed  to  sug- 
gest a 

Retreat  to  the  shrine  of  a  tranquil 

siesta), 

Kept  our  Hero  at  hand,  who,  by  means 
of  a  bray, 

Which  he  gave  to  the  life,  drove  the 

rabble  away  ; 
And  if  that  would  n't  do,  he  was  sure 

to  succeed, 
If  he  took  his  review  out  and  offered  to 

read  ; 

Or,  failing  in  plans  of  this  milder  de- 
scription, 

He  would  ask  for  their  aid  to  get  up  a 

subscription, 
Considering  that  authorship  wasn't  a 

rich  craft, 


To  print  the   "American  drama  of 

Witchcraft." 
"  Stay,  I  '11  read  you  a  scene,"  —  but  he 

hardly  began, 
Ere  Apollo  shrieked  "  Help  !  "  and  the 

authors  all  ran  : 
And  once,  when  these  purgatives  acted 

with  less  spirit, 
And  the  desperate  case  asked  a  remedy 

desperate, 

He  drew  from  his  pocket  a  foolscap 
epistle 

As  calmly  as  if 't  were  a  nine-barrelled 
pistol, 

And  threatened  them  all  with  the  judg- 
ment to  come, 

Of  "A  wandering  Star's  first  impressions 
of  Rome." 

"Stop  !  stop  !"  with  their  hands  o'er 
their  ears,  screamed  the  Muses, 

"  He  may  go  off  and  murder  himself,  if 
he  chooses, 

'T  was  a  means  self-defence  only  sanc- 
tioned his  trying, 

'T  is  mere  massacre  now  that  the  ene- 
^  my 's  flying; 

If  he 's  forced  to 't  again,  and  we  hap- 
pen to  be  there, 

Give  us  each  a  large  handkerchief  soaked 
in  strong  ether." 

I  called  this  a  "  Fable  for  Critics  "  ; 
you  think  it 's 
More  like  a  display  of  my  rhythmical 
trinkets  ; 

My  plot,  like  an  icicle,  's  slender  and 
slippery, 

Every  moment  more  slender,  and  likely 

to  slip  awry, 
And  the  reader  unwilling  in  loco  desi- 

pere, 

Is  free  to  jump  over  as  much  of  my 
frippery 

As  he  fancies,  and,  if  he 's  a  provident 

skipper,  he 
May  have  an  Odyssean  sway  of  the  gales, 
And  get  safe  to  port,  ere  his  patience 

quite  fails  ; 
Moreover,  although 't  is  a  slender  return 
For  your  toil  and  expense,  yet  my  paper 

will  burn, 

And,  if  you  have  manfully  struggled 

thus  far  with  me, 
You  may  e'en  twist  me  up,  and  just 

light  your  cigar  with  me  : 
If  too  angry  for  that,  you  can  tear  me  in 

pieces, 


A  FABLE  FOR  CRITICS. 


125 


And  my  membra  disjecta  consign  to  the 
breezes, 

A  fate  like  great  Ratzau's,  whom  one  of 

those  bores, 
Who  beflead  with  bad  verses  poor  Louis 

Quatorze, 

Describes  (the  first  verse  somehow  ends 

with  victoire), 
As  dispersant  partout  et  ses  membres  et 

sa  gloire  ; 
Or,  if  I  were  over-desirous  of  earning 
A  repute  among  noodles  for  classical 

learning, 

I  could  pick  you  a  score  of  allusions,  I 
wis, 

As  new  as  the  jests  of  Didaskalos  tis  ; 
Better  still,  I  could  make  out  a  good 
solid  list 

From  recondite  authors  who  do  not  ex- 
ist, — 

But  that  would  be  naughty :  at  least,  I 

could  twist 
Something  out  of  Absyrtus,  or  turn 

your  inquiries 
After  Milton's  prose  metaphor,  drawn 

from  Osiris ;  — 
But,  as  Cicero  says  he  won't  say  this  or 

that 

(A  fetch,  I  must  say,  most  transparent 
and  flat), 

After  saying  whate'er  he  could  possibly 

think  of,  — 
I  simply  will  state  that  I  pause  on  the 

brink  of 

A  mire,  ankle-deep,  of  deliberate  con- 
fusion, 

Made  up  of  old  jumbles  of  classic  allu- 
sion, 

So,  when  you  were  thinking  yourselves 

to  be  pitied, 
Just  conceive  how  much  harder  your 

teeth  you  'd  have  gritted, 
An  't  were  not  for  the  dulness  I 've 

kindly  omitted. 

I 'd  apologize  here  for  my  many  di- 
gressions, 

Were  it  not  that  I 'm  certain  to  trip  into 
fresh  ones 

('Tis  so  hard  to  escape  if  you  get  in 
their  mesh  once) ; 

Just  reflect,  if  you  please,  how 't  is  said 
by  Horatius, 

That  Maeonides  nods  now  and  then,  and, 
my  gracious  ! 

It  certainly  does  look  a  little  bit  omi- 
nous 


When  he  gets  under  way  with  ton 

$  apameibomenos. 
(Here  a  something  occurs  which  I  '11  just 

clap  a  rhyme  to, 
And  say  it  myself,  ere  a  Zoilus  have 

time  to,  — 
Any  author  a  nap  like  Van  Winkle's 

may  take, 
If  he  only  contrive  to  keep  readers 

awake, 

But  he  '11  very  soon  find  himself  laid  on 
the  shelf, 

If  they  fall  a-nodding  when  he  nods 
himself.) 

Once  for  all,  to  return,  and  to  stav, 
willl,  nilll  — 
When  Phoebus  expressed  his  desire  for 
a  lily, 

Our  hero,  whose  homoeopathic  sagacity 
With  an  ocean  of  zeal  mixed  his  drop 

of  capacity, 
Set  off  for  the  garden  as  fast  as  the 

wind 

(Or,  to  take  a  comparison  more  to  my 
mind, 

As  a  sound  politician  leaves  conscience 
behind), 

And  leaped  the  low  fence,  as  a  party 

hack  jumps 
O'er  his  principles,  when  something  else 

turns  up  trumps. 

He  was  gone  a  long  time,  and  Apollo, 
meanwhile, 
Went  over  some  sonnets  of  his  with  a 
file, 

For,  of  all  compositions,  he  thought 

that  the  sonnet 
Best  repaid  all  the  toil  you  expended 

upon  it ; 

It  should  reach  with  one  impulse  the 

end  of  its  course, 
And  for  one  final  blow  collect  all  of  its 

force  ; 

Not  a  verse  should  be  salient,  but  each 

one  should  tend 
With  a  wave-like  up-gathering  to  break 

at  the  end  ; 
So,  condensing  the  strength  here,  there 

smoothing  a  wry  kink, 
He  was  killing  the  time,  when  up  walked 

Mr.  D  ; 

At  a  few  steps  behind  him,  a  small  man 

in  glasses 

Went  dodging  about,  muttering,  "Mur- 
derers !  asses !  " 


126 


A  FABLE  FOR  CRITICS. 


From  out  of  his  pocket  a  paper  he 'd  take, 
With  a  proud  look  of  martyrdom  tied  to 
its  stake, 

And,  reading  a  squib  at  himself,  he'd 
say,  44  Here  I  see 

'Gainst  American  letters  a  bloody  con- 
spiracy, 

They  are  all  by  my  personal  enemies 
written  ; 

I  must  post  an  anonymous  letter  to 
Britain, 

And  show  that  this  gall  is  the  merest 

suggestion 
Of  spite  at  my  zeal  on  the  Copyright 

question, 

For,  on  this  side  the  water,  't  is  prudent 
to  pull 

O'er  the  eyes  of  the  public  their  national 
wool, 

By  accusing  of  slavish  respect  to  John 
Bull 

All  American  authors  who  have  more  or 
less 

Of  that  anti- American  humbug  —  suc- 
cess, 

While  in  private  we  're   always  em- 
bracing the  knees 
Of  some  twopenny  editor  over  the  seas, 
And  licking  his  critical  shoes,  for  you 
know 't  is 

The  whole  aim  of  our  lives  to  get  one 

English  notice  ; 
My  American  puffs  I  would  willingly 

burn  all 

(They  're  all  from  one  source,  monthly, 

weekly,  diurnal) 
To  get  but  a  kick  from  a  transmarine 

journal !  " 

So,  culling  the  gibes  of  each  critical 
scorner 

As  if  they  were  plums,  and  himself  were 

Jack  Horner, 
He  came  cautiously  on,  peeping  round 

every  corner, 
And  into  each  hole  where  a  weasel  might 

pass  in, 

Expecting  the  knife  of  some  critic  as- 
sassin, 

Who  stabs  to  the  heart  with  a  carica- 
ture, 

Not  so  bad  as  those  daubs  of  the  Sun, 

to  be  sure, 
Yet  done  with  a  dagger-o'-type,  whose 

vile  portraits 
Disperse  all  one's  good  and  condense  all 

one's  poor  traits. 


Apollo  looked  up,  hearing  footsteps 

approaching, 
And  slipped  out  of  sight  the  new  rhymes 

he  was  broaching,  — 
44  Good  day,  Mr.  D  ,  I 'm  happy  to 

meet, 

With  a  scholar  so  ripe,  and  a  critic  so 
neat, 

Who  through  Grub  Street  the  soul  of  a 

gentleman  carries ; 
What  news  from  that  suburb  of  London 

and  Paris 

Which  latterly  makes  such  shrill  claims 

to  monopolize 
The  credit  of  being  the  New  World's 

metropolis  ? " 

"Why,  nothing  of  consequence,  save 

this  attack 
On  my  friend  there,  behind,  by  some 

pitiful  hack, 
Who  thinks  every  national  author  a  poor 

one, 

That  isn't  a  copy  of  something  that's 
foreign, 

And  assaults  the  American  Dick  —  " 

"  Nay,  't  is  clear 

That  your  Damon  there 's  fond  of  a  flea 
in  his  ear, 

And,  if  no  one  else  furnished  them  gra- 
tis, on  tick 

He  would  buy  some  himself,  just  to  hear 
the  old  click  ; 

Why,  I  honestly  think,  if  some  fool  in 
Japan 

Should  turn  up  his  nose  at  the  4  Poems 
on  Man,' 

Your  friend  there  by  some  inward  in- 
stinct would  know  it, 

Would  get  it  translated,  reprinted,  and 
show  it ; 

As  a  man  might  take  off  a  high  stock  to 
exhibit 

The  autograph  round  his  own  neck  of 

the  gibbet ; 
Nor  would  let  it  rest  so,  but  fire  column 

after  column, 
Signed  Cato,  or  Brutus,  or  something  as 

solemn, 

By  way  of  displaying  his  critical  crosses, 
And  tweaking  that  poor  transatlantic 
proboscis, 

His  broadsides  resulting  (this  last  there 's 

no  doubt  of) 
In  successively  sinking  the  craft  they  're 

fired  out  of. 


A  FABLE  FOE  CRITICS. 


127 


Now  nobody  knows  when  an  author  is 
hit, 

If  he  don't  have  a  public  hysterical  fit ; 
Let  him  only  keep  close  in  his  snug 

garret's  dim  ether, 
And  nobody 'd  think  of  his  critics — or 

him  either ; 
If  an  author  have  any  least  fibre  of 

worth  in  him, 
Abuse  would  but  tickle  the  organ  of 

mirth  in  him; 
All  the  critics  on  earth  cannot  crush 

with  their  ban 
One  word  that 's  in  tune  with  the  nature 

of  man." 

"  Well,  perhaps  so  ;  meanwhile  I  have 
brought  you  a  book, 

Into  which  if  you  '11  just  have  the  good- 
ness to  look, 

You  may  feel  so  delighted  (when  once 
you  are  through  it) 

As  to  deem  it  not  unworth  your  while 
to  review  it, 

And  I  think  I  can  promise  your  thoughts, 
if  you  do, 

A  place  in  the  next  Democratic  Review." 

"  The  most  thankless  of  gods  you  must 

surely  have  thought  me, 
For  this  is  the  forty-fourth  copy  you 've 

brought  me, 
I  have  given  them  away,  or  at  least  I 

have  tried, 
But  I 've  forty-two  left,  standing  all  side 

by  side 

(The  man  who  accepted  that  one  copy 
died),  — 

From  one  end  of  a  shelf  to  the  other 

they  reach, 
i  With  the   author's  respects '  neatly 

written  in  each. 
The  publisher,  sure,  will  proclaim  a  Te 

Deum, 

When  he  hears  of  that  order  the  British 
Museum 

Has  sent  for  one  set  of  what  books  were 

first  printed 
In  America,  little  or  big,  —  for  't  is 

hinted 

That  this  is  the  first  truly  tangible  hope 
he 

Has  ever  had  raised  for  the  sale  of  a  copy. 
I 've  thought  very  often 't  would  be  a 

good  thing 
In  all  public  collections  of  books,  if  a 

wing 


Were  set  off  by  itself,  like  the  seas  from 

the  dry  lands, 
Marked  Literature  suited  to  desolate 

islands, 

And  filled  with  such  books  as  could 

never  be  read 
Save  by  readers  of  proofs,  forced  to  do  it 

for  bread,  — 
Such  books  as  one 's  wrecked  on  in  small 

coun  try  -  tavern  s, 
Such  as  hermits  might  mortify  over  in 

caverns, 

Such  as  Satan,  if  printing  had  then  been 
invented, 

As  the  climax  of  woe,  would  to  Job  have 
presented, 

Such  as  Crusoe  might  dip  in,  although 

there  are  few  so 
Outrageously  cornered  by  fate  as  poor 

Crusoe ; 

And  since  the  philanthropists  just  now 

are  banging 
And  gibbeting  all  who  're  in  favor  of 

hanging 

(Though  Cheever  has  proved  that  the 

Bible  and  Altar 
Were  let  down  from  Heaven  at  the  end 

of  a  halter, 
And  that  vital  religion  would  dull  and 

grow  callous, 
Unrefreshed,  now  and  then,  with  a  sniff 

of  the  gallows),  — 
And  folks  are  beginning  to  think  it  looks 

odd, 

To  choke  a  poor  scamp  for  the  glory  of 
God; 

And  that  He  who  esteems  the  Virginia  reel 
A  bait  to  draw  saints  from  their  spiritual 
weal, 

And  regards  the  quadrille  as  a  far  greater 
knavery 

Than  crushing  His  African  children 

with  slavery,  — 
Since  all  who  take  part  in  a  waltz  or 

cotillon 

Are  mounted  for  hell  on  the  Devil's  own 
pillion, 

Who,  as  every  true  orthodox  Christian 

well  knows, 
Approaches  the  heart  through  the  door 

of  the  toes,  — 
That  He,  I  was  saying,  whose  judgments 

are  stored 

For  such  as  take  steps  in  despite  of  his 
word, 

Should  look  with  delight  on  the  ago- 
nized prancing 


128 


A  FABLE  FOR  CRITICS. 


Of  a  wretch  who  has  not  the  least  ground 

for  his  dancing, 
"While  the  State,  standing  by,  sings  a 

verse  from  the  Psalter 
About  ottering  to  God  on  his  favorite 

halter, 

And,  when  the  legs  droop  from  their 

twitching  divergence, 
Sells  the  clothes  to  a  Jew,  and  the 

corpse  to  the  surgeons;  — 
Now,  instead  of  all  this,  I  think  I  can 

direct  you  all 
To  a  criminal  code  both  humane  and 

effectual ;  — 
I  propose  to  shut  up  every  doer  of 

wrong 

With  these  desperate  books,  for  such 

term,  short  or  long, 
As  by  statute  in  such  cases  made  and 

provided, 

Shall  be  by  your  wise  legislators  de- 
cided : 

Thus :  —  Let  murderers  be  shut,  to  grow 

wiser  and  cooler, 
At  hard  labor  for  life  on  the  works  of 

Miss  ; 

Petty  thieves,   kept    from  flagranter 

crimes  by  their  fears, 
Shall  peruse  Yankee  Doodle  a  blank 

term  of  years,  — 
That  American  Punch,  like  the  English, 

no  doubt,  — 
Just  the  sugar  and  lemons  and  spirit 

left  out. 

"  But  stay,  here  comes  Tityrus  Gris- 
wold,  and  leads  on 

The  flocks  whom  he  first  plucks  alive, 
and  then  feeds  on,  — 

A  loud-cackling  swarm,  in  whose  feath- 
ers warm -d  rest, 

He  goes  for  as  perfect  a  —  swan  as  the 
rest. 

* 4  There  comes  Emerson  first,  whose 

rich  words,  every  one, 
Are  like  gold  nails  in  temples  to  hang 

trophies  on, 
Whose  prose  is  grand  verse,  while  his 

verse,  the  Lord  knows, 
Is  some  of  it  pr —  No,  't  is  not  even 

prose  ; 

I 'm  speaking  of  metres ;  some  poems 

ha^e  welled 
From  those  rare  depths  of  soul  that  have 

ne'er  been  excelled ; 


They're  not  epics,  but   that  doesn't 

matter  a  pin, 
In  creating,  the  only  hard  thing 's  to 

begin  ; 

A  grass-blade 's  no  easier  to  make  than 
an  oak  ; 

If  you  've  once  found  the  way,  you've 
achieved  the  grand  stroke  ; 

In  the  worst  of  his  poems  are  mines  of 
rich  matter, 

But  thrown  in  a  heap  with  a  crush  and 
a  clatter; 

Now  it  is  not  one  thing  nor  another  alone 
Makes  a  poem,  but  rather  the  general 
tone, 

The  something  pervading,  uniting  the 
whole, 

The  before  unconceived,  unconceivable 
soul, 

So  that  just  in  removing  this  trifle  or 
that,  you 

Take  away,  as  it  were,  a  chief  limb  of 

the  statue  ; 
Roots,  wood,  bark,  and  leaves  singly 

perfect  may  be, 
But,  clapt  hodge-podge  together,  they 

don't  make  a  tree. 

'  *  But,  to  come  back  to  Emerson  (whom, 
by  the  way, 
I  believe  we  left  waiting),  —  his  is,  we 
may  say, 

A  Greek  head  on  right  Yankee  shoul- 
ders, whose  range 

Has  Olympus  for  one  pole,  for  t'  other 
the  Exchange ; 

He  seems,  to  my  thinking  (although  I'm 
afraid 

The  comparison  must,  long  ere  this,  have 
been  made), 

A  Plotinus-Montaigne,  where  the  Egyp- 
tian's gold  mist 

And  the  Gascon's  shrewd  wit  cheek-by- 
jowl  coexist ; 

All  admire,  and  yet  scarcely  six  converts 
he's  got 

To  I  don't  (nor  they  either)  exactly 

know  what ; 
For  though  he  builds  glorious  temples, 

't  is  odd 

He  leaves  never  a  doorway  to  get  in  a 
god. 

'T  is  refreshing  to  old-fashioned  people 
like  me 

To  meet  such  a  primitive  Pagan  as  he, 
In  whose  mind  all  creation  is  duly  re- 
spected 


A  FABLE  FOR  CRITICS. 


129 


As  parts  of  himself — just  a  little  pro- 
jected ; 

And  who  's  willing  to  worship  the  stars 

and  the  sun, 
A  convert  to  —  nothing  but  Emerson. 
So  perfect  a  balance  there  is  in  his 

head, 

That  he  talks  of  things  sometimes  as  if 

they  were  dead  ; 
Life,  nature,  love,  God,  and  affairs  of 

that  sort, 

He  looks  at  as  merely  ideas;  in  short, 
As  if  they  were  fossils  stuck  round  in  a 
cabinet, 

Of  such  vast  extent  that  our  earth 's  a 
mere  dab  in  it ; 

Composed  just  as  he  is  inclined  to  con- 
jecture her, 

Namely,  one  part  pure  earth,  ninety-nine 
parts  pure  lecturer  ; 

You  are  filled  with  delight  at  his  clear 
demonstration, 

Each  figure,  word,  gesture,  just  fits  the 
occasion, 

With  the  quiet  precision  of  science  he  '11 
sort  'em 

But  you  can't  help  suspecting  the  whole 
a  post  mortem, 

"There  are  persons,  mole-blind  to  the 
soul's  make  and  style, 
"Who  insist  on  a  likeness  'twixt  him  and 
Carlyle  ; 

To  compare  him  with  Plato  would  be 

vastly  fairer, 
Carlyle 's  the  more  burly,  but  E.  is  the 

rarer ; 

He  sees  fewer  objects,  but  clearlier,  true- 
lier, 

If  C.'s  as  original,  E.'s  more  peculiar  ; 
That  he 's  more  of  a  man  you  might  say 

of  the  one, 
Of  the  other  he  .'s  more  of  an  Emerson  ; 
C.'s  the  Titan,  as  shaggy  of  mind  as  of 

limb,  — 

E.  the  clear-eyed  Olympian,  rapid  and 
slim  ; 

The  one 's  two  thirds  Norseman,  the 

other  half  Greek, 
"Where  the  one 's  most  abounding,  the 

other  's  to  seek  ; 
C.'s  generals  require  to  be  seen  in  the 

mass, — 

E.'s  specialties  gain  if  enlarged  by  the 
glass; 

C.  gives  nature  and  God  his  own  fits  of 
the  blues, 


And  rims  common-sense  things  with 

mystical  hues, — 
E.  sits  in  a  mystery  calm  and  intense, 
And  looks  coolly  around  him  with  sharp 

common-sense ; 
C.  shows  you  how  every-day  matters 

unite 

With  the  dim  transdiurnal  recesses  of 
night,  — 

While  E.,  in  a  plain,  preternatural  way, 
Makes  mysteries  matters  of  mere  every 
day  ; 

C.  draws  all  his  characters  quite  a  la 
Fuseli,  — 

He  don't  sketch  their  bundles,  of  mus- 
cles and  thews  illy, 

But  he  paints  with  a  brush  so  untamed 
and  profuse, 

They  seem  nothing  but  bundles  of  mus- 
cles and  thews  ; 

E.  is  rather  like  Flaxman,  lines  strait 
and  severe, 

And  a  colorless  outline,  but  full,  round, 
and  clear  ;  — 

To  the  men  he  thinks  worthy  he  frankly 
accords 

The  design  of  a  white  marble  statue  in 
words. 

C.  labors  to  get  at  the  centre,  and 
then 

Take  a  reckoning  from  there  of  his  ac- 
tions and  men ; 

E.  calmly  assumes  the  said  centre  as 
granted, 

And,  given  himself,  has  whatever  is 
wanted. 

"  He  has  imitators  in  scores,  who  omit 
No  part  of  the  man  but  his  wisdom  and 
wit, — 

Who  go  carefully  o'er  the  sky-blue  of 
his  brain, 

And  when  he  has  skimmed  it  once, 

skim  it  again  ; 
If  at  all  they  resemble  him,  you  may  be 

sure  it  is 

Because  their  shoals  mirror  his  mists 

and  obscurities, 
As  a  mud-puddle  seems  deep  as  heaven 

for  a  minute, 
While  a  cloud  that  floats  o'er  is  reflected 

within  it. 

"There  comes  ,  for  instance;  to 

see  him  's  rare  sport, 
Tread  in  Emerson's  tracks  with  legs  pain- 
fully short ; 


130 


A  FABLE  FOR  CRITICS. 


How  he  jumps,  how  he  strains,  and  gets 
red  in  the  face, 

To  keep  step  with  the  mystagogue's 
natural  pace  ! 

He  follows  as  close  as  a  stick  to  a  rock- 
et, 

His  fingers  exploring  the  prophet's  each 
pocket. 

Fie,  for  shame,  brother  bard  ;  with  good 
fruit  of  your  own, 

Can't  you  let  Neighbor  Emerson's  or- 
chards alone  ? 

Besides,  't  is  no  use,  you  '11  not  find  e'en 
a  core, — 

 has  picked  up  all  the  windfalls  be- 
fore. 

They  might  strip  every  tree,  and  E. 

never  would  catch  'em, 
His  Hesperides  have  no  rude  dragon  to 

watch  'em  ; 
When  they  send  him  a  dishful,  and  ask 

him  to  try  'em, 
He  never  suspects  how  the  sly  rogues 

came  by  'em  ; 
He  wonders  why  't  is  there  are  none 

such  his  trees  on, 
And  thinks  'em  the  best  he  has  tasted 

this  season. 

"  Yonder,  calm  as  a  cloud,  Alcott 
stalks  in  a  dream, 
And  fancies  himself  in  thy  groves,  Aca- 
deme, 

With  the  Parthenon  nigh,  and  the  olive- 
trees  o'er  him, 

And  never  a  fact  to  perplex  him  or  bore 
him, 

With  a  snug  room  at  Plato's  when  night 

comes,  to  walk  to, 
And  people  from  morning  till  midnight 

to  talk  to, 
And  from  midnight  till  morning,  nor 

snore  in  their  listening  ;  — 
So  he  muses,  his  face  with  the  joy  of  it 

glistening, 
For  his  highest  conceit  of  a  happiest 

state  is 

Where  they'd  live  upon  acorns,  and  hear 

him  talk  gratis ; 
And  indeed,  I  believe,  no  man  ever 

talked  better, — 
Each  sentence  hangs  perfectly  poised  to 

a  letter  ; 

He  seems  piling  words,  but  there 's  royal 
dust  hid 

In  the  heart  of  each  sky-piercing  pyra- 
mid. 


While  he  talks  he  is  great,  but  goes,  out 

like  a  taper, 
If  you  shut  him  up  closely  with  pen,  ink, 

and  paper ; 
Yet  his  fingers  itch  for  'em  from  morning 

till  night, 

And  he  thinks  he  does  wrong  if  he  don't 

always  write ; 
In  this,  as  in  all  things,  a  lamb  among 

men, 

He  goes  to  sure  death  when  he  goes  to 
his  pen. 

4  *  Close  behind  him  is  Brownson,  his 
mouth  very  full 
With  attempting  to  gulp  a  Gregorian 
bull; 

Who  contrives,  spite  of  that,  to  pour  out 

as  he  goes 

A  stream  of  transparent  and  forcible 
prose ; 

He  shifts  quite  about,  then  proceeds  to 
expound 

That 't  is  merely  the  earth,  not  himself, 

that  turns  round, 
And  wishes  it  clearly  impressed  on  your 

mind 

That  the  weathercock  rules  and  not  fol- 
lows the  wind ; 

Proving  first,  then  as  deftly  confuting 
each  side, 

With  no  doctrine  pleased  that 's  not 

somewhere  denied, 
He    lays    the   denier    away   on  the 

shelf, 

And  then  —  down  beside  him  lies  gravely 
himself. 

He 's  the  Salt  River  boatman,  who  al- 
ways stands  willing 

To  convey  friend  or  foe  without  charging 
a  shilling, 

And  so  fond  of  the  trip  that,  when  lei- 
sure 's  to  spare, 

He  '11  row  himself  up,  if  he  can't  get  a 
fare. 

The  worst  of  it  is,  that  his  logic 's  so 
strong, 

That  of  two  sides  he  commonly  chooses 

the  wrong; 
If  there  ?s  only  one,  why,  he'll  split  it 

in  two, 

And  first  pummel  this  half,  then  that, 

black  and  blue. 
That  white 's  white  needs  no  proof,  but 

it  takes  a  deep  fellow 
To  prove  it  jet-black,  and  that  jet-black 

is  yellow. 


A  FABLE  FOR  CRITICS. 


131 


He  offers  the  true  faith  to  drink  in  a 

sieve,  — 

"When  it  reaches  your  lips  there 's  naught 

left  to  believe 
But  a  few  silly-  (syllo-,  I  mean,)  -gisms 

that  squat  'em 
Like  tadpoles,  o'erjoyed  with  the  mud  at 

the  bottom. 

"There  is  Willis,  all  natty  and  jaunty 
and  gay, 

"Who  says  his  best  things  in  so  foppish 
a  way, 

"With  conceits  and  pet  phrases  so  thickly 

o'erlaying  'em, 
That  one  hardly  knows  whether  to  thank 

him  for  saying  'em ; 
Over-ornament  ruins  both  poem  and 

prose, 

Just  conceive  of  a  Muse  with  a  ring  in 
her  nose  ! 

His  prose  had  a  natural  grace  of  its 
own, 

And  enough  of  it,  too,  if  he  'd  let  it 
alone ; 

But  he  twitches  and  jerks  so,  one  fairly 
gets  tired, 

And  is  forced  to  forgive  where  he  might 
have  admired ; 

Yet  whenever  it  slips  away  free  and  un- 
laced, 

It  runs  like  a  stream  with  a  musical 
waste, 

And  gurgles  along  with  the  liquidest 
sweep ;  — 

'T  is  not  deep  as  a  river,  but  who  'd 

have  it  deep  ? 
In  a  country  where  scarcely  a  village  is 

found 

That  has  not  its  author  sublime  and  pro- 
found, 

For  some  one  to  be  slightly  shoal  is  a 
duty, 

And  Willis's  shallowness  makes  half  his 
beauty. 

His  prose  winds  along  with  a  blithe, 

gurgling  error, 
And  reflects  all  of  Heaven  it  can  see  in 

its  mirror. 

'T  is  a  narrowish  strip,  but  it  is  not  an 
artifice,  — 

'T  is  the  true  out-of-doors  with  its  genu- 
ine hearty  phiz ; 

It  is  Nature  herself,  and  there 's  some- 
thing in  that, 

Since  most  brains  reflect  but  the  crown 
of  a  hat. 


No  volume  I  know  to  read  under  a  tree, 
More  truly  delicious  than  his  A  1'Abri, 
With  the  shadows  of  leaves  flowing  over 

your  book, 
Like  ripple-shades  netting  the  bed  of  a 

brook ; 

With  June  coming  softly  your  shoulder 

to  look  over, 
Breezes  waiting  to  turn  every  leaf  of 

your  book  over, 
And  Nature  to  criticise  still  as  you 

read,  — 

The  page  that  bears  that  is  a  rare  one 
indeed. 

"He  's  so  innate  a  cockney,  that  had 
he  been  born 

Where  plain  bear-skin's  the  only  full- 
dress  that  is  worn, 

He  'd  have  given  his  own  such  an  air  that 
you  'd  say 

'T  had  been  made  by  a  tailor  to  lounge 
in  Broadway. 

His  nature  's  a  glass  of  champagne  with 
the  foam  on  't, 

As  tender  as  Fletcher,  as  witty  as  Beau- 
mont ; 

So  his  best  things  are  done  in  the  flush 

of  the  moment, 
If  he  wait,  all  is  spoiled ;  he  may  stir  it 

and  shake  it, 
But,  the  fixed  air  once  gone,  he  can  never 

remake  it. 

He  might  be  a  marvel  of  easy  delightful- 

ness, 

If  he  would  not  sometimes  leave  the  r  out 

of  sprightfulness ; 
And  he  ought  to  let  Scripture  alone  — 

't  is  self-slaughter, 
For  nobody  likes  inspiration-and-water. 
He 'd  have  been  just  the  fellow  to  sup  at 

the  Mermaid, 
Cracking  jokes  at  rare  Ben,  with  an  eye 

to  the  barmaid, 
His  wit  running  up  as  Canary  ran 

down,  — 

The  topmost  bright  bubble  on  the  wave 
of  The  Town. 

"Here  comes  Parker,  the  Orson  of  par- 
sons, a  man 

Whom  the  Church  undertook  to  put  un- 
der her  ban 

(The  Church  of  Socinus,  I  mean), —  his 
opinions 

Being  §o-  (ultra)  -cinian,  they  shocked 
the  Socinians ; 


132 


A  FABLE  FOR  CRITICS. 


They  believed  —  faith,  I 'm  puzzled —  I 

think  I  may  call 
Their  belief  a  believing  in  nothing  at 

all, 

Or  something  of  that  sort ;  I  know  they 
all  went 

For  a  general  union  of  total  dissent  : 
He  went  a  step  farther ;  without  cough 
or  hem, 

He  frankly  avowed  he  believed  not  in 
them  ; 

And,  before  he  could  be  jumbled  up  or 

prevented, 
From  their  orthodox  kind  of  dissent  he 

dissented. 

There  was  heresy  here,  you  perceive,  for 
the  right 

Of  privately  judging  means  simply  that 
light 

Has  been  granted  to  me,  for  deciding  on 
you  ; 

And  in  happier  times,  before  Atheism 
grew, 

The  deed  contained  clauses  for  cooking 
you  too, 

Now  at  Xerxes  and  Knut  we  all  laugh, 

yet  our  foot 
With  the  same  wave  is  wet  that  mocked 

Xerxes  and  Knut, 
And  we  all  entertain  a  sincere  private 

notion, 

That  our  Thus  far  !  will  have  a  great 

weight  with  the  ocean. 
'T  was  so  with  our  liberal  Christians  : 

they  bore 

With  sincerest  conviction  their  chairs  to 

the  shore  ; 
They  brandished  their  worn  theological 

birches, 

Bade  natural  progress  keep  out  of  the 
Churches, 

And  expected  the  lines  they  had  drawn 
to  prevail 

With  the  fast-rising  tide  to  keep  out  of 
their  pale  ; 

They  had  formerly  dammed  the  Pontifi- 
cal See, 

And  the  same  thing,  they  thought, 
would  do  nicely  for  P.  ; 

But  he  turned  up  his  nose  at  their  mur- 
muring and  shamming, 

And  cared  (shall  I  say?)  not  a  d  for 

their  damming  ; 

So  they  first  read  him  out  of  their 
church,  and  next  minute 

Turned  round  and  declared  he  had  never 
been  in  it. 


But  the  ban  was  too  small  or  the  man 

was  too  big, 
For  he  recks  not  their  bells,  books,  and 

candles  a  fig 
(He  don't  look  like  a  man  who  would 

stay  treated  shabbily, 
Sophroniscus'  son's  head  o'er  the  fea- 
tures of  Rabelais)  ;  — 
He  bangs  and  bethwacks  them,  —  their 

backs  he  salutes 
With  the  whole  tree  of  knowledge  torn 

up  by  the  roots ; 
His  sermons  with  satire  are  plenteously 

verjuiced, 

And  he  talks  in  one  breath  of  Confut- 

zee,  Cass,  Zerduscht, 
Jack  Robinson,  Peter  the  Hermit,  Strap, 

Dathan, 

Cush,   Pitt  (not  the  bottomless,  that 

he  's  no  faith  in), 
Pan,    Pillicock,     Shakespeare,  Paul, 

Toots,  Monsieur  Tonson, 
Aldebaran,  Alcander,  Ben  Khorat,  Ben 

Jonson, 

Thoth,  Richter,  Joe  Smith,  Father  Paul, 

Judah  Monis, 
Musaeus,  Muretus,  hem,  —  /u  Seorpio- 

nis, 

Maccabee,  Maccaboy,  Mac  —  Mac  —  ah  ! 

Machiavelli, 
Condorcet,  Count  d'Orsay,  Conder,  Say, 

Ganganelli, 
Orion,  O'Connell,  the  Chevalier  D'O, 
(See  the  Memoirs  of  Sully,)  to  irav,  the 

great  toe 

Of  the  statue  of  Jupiter,  now  made  to 

pass 

For  that  of  Jew  Peter  by  good  Romish 
brass, 

(You  may  add  for  yourselves,  for  I  find 
it  a  bore, 

All  the  names  you  have  ever,  or  not, 
heard  before, 

And  when  you  've  done  that  —  why,  in- 
vent a  few  more.) 

His  hearers  can't  tell  you  on  Sunday 
beforehand, 

If  in  that  day's  discourse  they  '11  be 
Bibled  or  Korancd, 

For  he 's  seized  the  idea  (by  his  mar- 
tyrdom fired) 

That  all  men  (not  orthodox)  may  be 
inspired ; 

Yet  though  wisdom  profane  with  his 

creed  he  may  weave  in, 
He  makes  it  quite  clear  what  he  does  nt 

believe  in, 


A  FABLE  FOR  CRITICS. 


133 


While  some,  who  decry  him,  think  all 

Kingdom  Come 
Is  a  sort  of  a,  kind  of  a,  species  of 

Hum, 

Of  which,  as  it  were,  so  to  speak,  not  a 
crumb 

Would  be  left,  if  we  did  n't  keep  care- 
fully mum, 

And,  to  make  a  clean  breast,  that  't  is 
perfectly  plain 

That  all  kinds  of  wisdom  are  somewhat 
profane ; 

Now  P.  's  creed  than  this  may  be  lighter 
or  darker 

But  in  one  thing,  't  is  clear,  he  has 
faith,  namely  —  Parker  ; 

And  this  is  what  makes  him  the  crowd- 
drawing  preacher, 

There  's  a  background  of  god  to  each 
hard-working  feature, 

Every  word  that  he  speaks  has  been 
fierily  furnaced 

In  the  blast  of  a  life  that  has  struggled 
in  earnest : 

There  he  stands,  looking  more  like  a 
ploughman  than  priest, 

If  not  dreadfully  awkward,  not  graceful 
at  least, 

His  gestures  all  downright  and  same,  if 
you  will, 

As  of  brown-fisted  Hobnail  in  hoeing  a 
drill, 

But  his  periods  fall  on  you,  stroke  after 
stroke, 

Like  the  blows  of  a  lumberer  felling  an 
oak, 

You  forget  the  man  wholly,  you  're 

thankful  to  meet 
With  a  preacher  who  smacks  of  the 

field  and  the  street, 
And  to  hear,  you  're  not  over-particular 

whence, 

Almost  Taylor's  profusion,  quite  Lati- 
mer's sense. 

"There  is  Bryant,  as  quiet,  as  cool, 

and  as  dignified, 
As  a  smooth,  silent  iceberg,  that  never 

is  ignified, 
Save  when  by  reflection 't  is  kindled  o' 

nights 

With  a  semblance  of  flame  by  the  chill 

Northern  Lights. 
He  may  rank  (Griswold  says  so)  first 

bard  of  your  nation 
(There  's  no  doubt  that  he  stands  in 

supreme  ice-olation), 


Your  topmost  Parnassus  he  may  set  his 
heel  on, 

But  no  warm  applauses  come,  peal  fol- 
lowing peal  on,  — 

He  's  too  smooth  and  too  polished,  to 
hang  any  zeal  on  : 

Unqualified  merits,  I  '11  grant,  if  you 
choose,  he  has  'em, 

But  he  lacks  the  one  merit  of  kindling 
enthusiasm ; 

If  he  stir  you  at  all,  it  is  just,  on  my 
soul, 

Like  being  stirred  up  with  the  very 
North  Pole. 

"He  is  very  nice  reading  in  summer, 

but  inter 

Nos,  we  don't  want  extra  freezing  in 
winter ; 

Take  him  up  in  the  depth  of  July,  my 
advice  is, 

When  you  feel  an  Egyptian  devotion  to 
ices. 

But,  deduct  all  you  can,  there 's  enough 
that 's  right  good  in  him, 

He  has  a  true  soul  for  field,  river,  and 
wood  in  him  ; 

And  his  heart,  in  the  midst  of  brick 
walls,  or  where'er  it  is, 

Glows,  softens,  and  thrills  with  the  ten- 
derest  charities  — 

To  you  mortals  that  delve  in  this  trade- 
ridden  planet? 

No,  to  old  Berkshire's  hills,  with  their 
limestone  and  granite. 

If  you  're  one  who  in  loco  (add  foco 
here)  desipis, 

You  will  get  of  his  outermost  heart  (as 
I  guess)  a  piece  ; 

But  you  'd  get  deeper  down  if  you  came 
as  a  precipice, 

And  would  break  the  last  seal  of  its  in- 
wardest  fountain, 

If  you  only  could  palm  yourself  off  for 
a  mountain. 

Mr.  Quivis,  or  somebody  quite  as  dis- 
cerning, 

Some  scholar  who  's  hourly  expecting 

his  learning,  . 
Calls  B.  the  American  Wordsworth ; 

but  Wordsworth 
Is  worth  near  as  much  as  your  whole 

tuneful  herd 's  worth. 
No,  don't  be  absurd,  he 's  an  excellent 

Bryant ; 

But,  my  friends,  you  '11  endanger  the 
life  of  your  client, 


134 


A  FABLE  FOR  CRITICS. 


By  attempting  to  stretch  him  up  into  a 
giant : 

If  you  choose  to  compare  him,  I  think 
there  are  two  per- 

-sons  lit  for  a  parallel — Thompson  and 
Cowper ;  * 

I  don't  mean  exactly,  —  there 's  some- 
thing of  each, 

There  's  T. 's  love  of  nature,  C.'s  pen- 
chant to  preach ; 

Just  mix  up  their  minds  so  that  C.'s 
spice  of  craziness 

Shall  balance  and  neutralize  T.'s  turn 
for  laziness, 

And  it  gives  you  a  brain  cool,  quite 
frictionless,  quiet, 

Whose  internal  police  nips  the  buds  of 
all  riot, — 

A  brain  like  a  permanent  strait-jacket 
put  on 

The  heart  which  strives  vainly  to  burst 

off  a  button, — 
A  brain  which,  without  being  slow  or 

mechanic, 

Does  more  than  a  larger  less  drilled, 

more  volcanic  ; 
He's   a  Cowper   condensed,  with  no 

craziness  bitten, 
And  the  advantage  that  Wordsworth 

before  him  had  written. 

"But,  my  dear  little  bardlings,  don't 
prick  up  your  ears 

Nor  suppose  I  would  rank  you  and  Bry- 
ant as  peers  ; 

If  I  call  him  an  iceberg,  I  don't  mean 
to  say 

There  is  nothing  in  that  which  is  grand 

in  its  way ; 
He  is  almost  the  one  of  your  poets  that 

knows 

How  much  grace,  strength,  and  dignity 

lie  in  Repose  ; 
If  he  sometimes  fall  short,  he  is  too 

wise  to  mar 
His  thought's  modest  fulness  by  going 

too  far  ; 

T  would  be  well  if  your  authors  should 
all  make  a  trial 

Of  what  virtue  there  is  in  severe  self- 
denial, 

*  To  demonstrate  quickly  and  easily  how  per- 
-versely  absurd  'tis  to  sound  this  name 
Cowper, 

As  people  in  general  call  him  named  super, 
I  remark  that  he  rhymes  it  himself  with 
horse-trooper. 


And  measure  their  writings  by  Hesiod's 

staff, 

Which  teaches  that  all  has  less  value 
than  half. 

"There  is  Whittier,  whose  swelling 

and  vehement  heart 
Strains  the  strait- breasted  drab  of  the 

Quaker  apart, 
And  reveals  the  live  Man,  still  supreme 

and  erect, 

Underneath  the  bemummying  wrappers 
of  sect  ; 

There  was  ne'er  a  man  born  who  had 

more  of  the  swing 
Of  the  true  lyric  bard  and  all  that  kind 

of  thing  ; 

And  his  failures  arise  (though  perhaps 
he  don't  know  it) 

From  the  very  same  cause  that  has 
made  him  a  poet,  — 

A  fervor  of  mind  which  knows  no  sep- 
aration 

'Twixt  simple  excitement  and  pure  in- 
spiration, 

As  my  Pythoness  erst  sometimes  erred 
from  not  knowing 

If 't  were  I  or  mere  wind  through  her 
tripod  was  blowing  ; 

Let  his  mind  once  get  head  in  its  fa- 
vorite direction 

And  the  torrent  of  verse  bursts  the  dams 
of  reflection, 

While,  borne  with  the  rush  of  the  metre 
along, 

The  poet  may  chance  to  go  right  or  go 
wrong, 

Content  with  the  whirl  and  delirium  of 

song  ; 

Then  his  grammar 's  not  always  correct, 
nor  his  rhymes, 

And  he 's  prone  to  repeat  his  own  lyrics 
sometimes, 

Not  his  best,  though,  for  those  are 
struck  off  at  white-heats 

When  the  heart  in  his  breast  like  a  trip- 
hammer beats, 

And  can  ne'er  be  repeated  again  any 
more 

Than  they  could  have  been  carefully 

plotted  before  : 
Like  old  what's-his-name  there  at  the 

battle  of  Hastings 
(Who,  however,  gave  more  than  mere 

rhythmical  bastings), 
Our    Quaker    leads   off  metaphorical 

fights 


A  FABLE  FOR  CRITICS. 


135 


For  reform  and  whatever  they  call  hu- 
man rights, 

Both  singing  and  striking  in  front  of 
the  war, 

And  hitting  his  foes  with  the  mallet  of 
Thor  ; 

Anne  haec,  one  exclaims,  on  beholding 

his  knocks, 
Vestisfilii  tui,  0  leather-clad  Fox  ? 
Can  that  be  thy  son,  in  the  battle's  mid 

din, 

Preaching  brotherly  love  and  then  driv- 
ing it  in 

To  the  brain  of  the  tough  old  Goliah  of 
sin, 

With  the  smoothest  of  pebbles  from 

Castaly's  spring 
Impressed  on  his  hard  moral  sense  with 

a  sling  ? 

"All  honor  and  praise  to  the  right- 
hearted  bard 

"Who  was  true  to  The  Voice  when  such 
service  was  hard, 

Who  himself  was  so  free  he  dared  sing 
for  the  slave 

When  to  look  but  a  protest  in  silence 
was  brave  ; 

All  honor  and  praise  to  the  women  and 
men 

Who  spoke  out  for  the  dumb  and  the 

down- trodden  then  ! 
I  need  not  to  name  them,  already  for  each 
I  see  History  preparing  the  statue  and 

niche ; 

They  were  harsh,  but  shall  you  be  so 

shocked  at  hard  words 
Who  have  beaten  your  pruning-hooks 

up  into  swords, 
Whose  rewards  and  hurrahs  men  are 

surer  to  gain 
By  the  reaping  of  men  and  of  women 

than  grain  ? 
Why  should  you  stand  aghast  at  their 

fierce  wordy  war,  if 
You  scalp  one  another  for  Bank  or  for 

Tariff? 

Your  calling  them  cut -throats  and 
knaves  all  day  long 

Don't  prove  that  the  use  of  hard  lan- 
guage is  wrong  ; 

While  the  World's  heart  beats  quicker 
to  think  of  such  men 

As  signed  Tyranny's  doom  with  a  bloody 
steel-pen, 

While  on  Fourth-of-Julys  beardless  ora- 
tors fright  one 


With  hints  at  Harmodius  and  Aristo- 
geiton, 

You  need  not  look  shy  at  your  sisters 
and  brothers 

Who  stab  with  sharp  words  for  the  free- 
dom of  others  ;  — 

No,  a  wreath,  twine  a  wreath  for  the 
loyal  and  true 

Who,  for  sake  of  the  many,  dared  stand 
with  the  few, 

Not  of  blood-spattered  laurel  for  ene- 
mies braved, 

But  of  broad,  peaceful  oak -leaves  for 
citizens  saved  ! 

"  Here  comes  Dana,  abstractedly  loi- 
tering along, 
Involved  in  a  paulo-post-future  of  song, 
Who  '11  be  going  to  write  what  '11  never 

be  written 
Till  the  Muse,  ere  he  think  of  it,  gives 

him  the  mitten,  — 
Who  is  so  well  aware  of  hew  things 

should  be  done, 
That  his  own  works  displease  him  before 

they  're  begun,  — 
Who  so  well  all  that  makes  up  good 

poetry  knows, 
That  the  best  of  his  poems  is  written  in 

prose  ; 

All  saddled  and  bridled  stood  Pegasus 
waiting, 

He  was  booted  and  spurred,  but  he  loi- 
tered debating  ; 

In  a  very  grave  question  his  soul  was 
immersed,  — 

Which  foot  in  the  stirrup  he  ought  to 
put  first ; 

And,  while  this  point  and  that  he  judi- 
cially dwelt  on, 

He,  somehow  or  other,  had  written 
Paul  Felton, 

Whose  beauties  or  faults,  whichsoever 
you  see  there, 

You  '11  allow  only  genius  could  hit  upon 
either. 

That  he  once  was  the  Idle  man  none 

will  deplore, 
But  I  fear  he  will  never  be  anything  more ; 
The  ocean  of  song  heaves  and  glitters 

before  him, 
The  depth  and  the  vastness  and  longing 

sweep  o'er  him, 
He  knows  every  breaker  and  shoal  on 

the  chart, 

He  has  the  Coast  Pilot  and  so  on  by 
heart, 


136 


A  FABLE  FOR  CRITICS. 


Yet  he  spends  his  whole  life,  like  the 
man  in  the  fable, 

In  learning  to  swim  on  his  library- 
table. 

"  There  swaggers  John  Neal,  who  has 
wasted  in  Maine 
The  sinews  and  chords  of  his  pugilist 
brain, 

Who  might  have  been  poet,  but  that, 

in  its  stead,  he 
Preferred  to  believe  that  he  was  so 

already  ; 

Too  hasty  to  wait  till  Art's  ripe  fruit 

should  drop, 
He  must  pelt  down  an  unripe  and 

colicky  crop; 
Who  took  to  the  law,  and  had  this 

sterling  plea  for  it, 
It  required  him  to  quarrel,  and  paid 

him  a  fee  for  it ; 
A  man  who 's  made  less  than  he  might 

have,  because 
He  always  has  thought  himself  more 

than  he  was, — 
Who,  with  very  good  natural  gifts  as  a 

bard, 

Broke  the  strings  of  his  lyre  out  by 

striking  too  hard, 
And  cracked  "half  the  notes  of  a  truly 

fine  voice, 
Because  song  drew  less  instant  attention 

than  noise. 
Ah,  men  do  not  know  how  much  strength 

is  in  poise, 
That  he  goes  the  farthest  who  goes  far 

enough, 

And  that  all  beyond  that  is  just  bother 
and  stuff. 

No  vain  man  matures,  he  makes  too 

much  new  wood ; 
His  blooms  are  too  thick  for  the  fruit 

to  be  good ; 
'T  is  the  jnodest  man  ripens,  'tis  he 

that  achieves, 
Just  what's  needed  of  sunshine  and 

shade  he  receives  ; 
Grapes,  to  mellow,  require  the  cool  dark 

of  their  leaves  ; 
Neal  wants  balance ;  he  throws  his  mind 

always  too  far, 
Whisking  out  flocks  of  comets,  but  never 

a  star  ; 

He  has  so  much  muscle,  and  loves  so  to 
show  it, 

That  he  strips  himself  naked  to  prove 
he's  a  poet, 


And,  to  show  he  could  leap  Art's  wide 

ditch,  if  he  tried, 
Jumps  clean  o'er  it,  and  into  the  hedge 

t'  other  side. 
He  has  strength,  but  there 's  nothing 

about  him  in  keeping ; 
One  gets  surelier  onward  by  walking 

than  leaping  ; 
He  has  used  his  own  sinews  himself  to 

distress, 

And  had  done  vastly  more  had  he  done 

vastly  less  ; 
In  letters,  too  soon  is  as  bad  as  too  late  ; 
Could  he  only  have  waited  he  might 

have  been  great  ; 
But  he  plumped  into  Helicon  up  to  the 

waist, 

And  muddied  the  stream  ere  he  took  his 
first  taste. 

"  There  is  Hawthorne,  with  genius 

so  shrinking  and  rare 
That  you  hardly  at  first  see  the  strength 

that  is  there ; 
A  frame  so  robust,  with  a  nature  so 

sweet, 

So  earnest,  so  graceful,  so  solid,  so  fleet, 
Is  worth  a  descent  from  Olympus  to 
meet  ; 

'T  is  as  if  a  rough  oak  that  for  ages  had 
stood, 

With  his  gnarled  bony  branches  like 

ribs  of  the  wood, 
Should  bloom,  after  cycles  of  struggle 

and  scathe, 
With  a  single  anemone  trembly  and 

rathe ; 

His  strength  is  so  tender,  his  wildness 
so  meek, 

That  a  suitable  parallel  sets  one  to 
seek,  — 

He 's  a  John  Bunyan  Fouque,  a  Puritan 
Tieck ; 

When  Nature  was  shaping  him,  clay  was 

not  granted 
For  making  so  full-sized  a  man  as  she 

wanted, 

So,  to  fill  out  her  model,  a  little  she 
spared 

From  some  finer-grained  stuff  for  a 
woman  prepared, 

And  she  could  not  have  hit  a  more  ex- 
cellent plan 

For  making  him  fully  and  perfectly 
man. 

The  success  of  her  scheme  gave  her  so 
much  delight, 


A  FABLE  FOR  CRITICS. 


137 


That  she  tried  it  again,  shortly  after,  in 
Dwight  ; 

Only,  while  she  was  kneading  and  shap- 
ing the  clay, 

She  sang  to  her  work  in  her  sweet  child- 
ish way, 

And  found,  when  she 'd  put  the  last 

touch  to  his  soul, 
That  the  music  had  somehow  got  mixed 

with  the  whole. 

"  Here  's  Cooper,  who 's  written  six 

volumes  to  show 
He 's  as  good  as  a  lord  :  well,  let 's 

grant  that  he  's  so  ; 
If  a  person  prefer  that  description  of 

praise, 

Why,  a  coronet 's  certainly  cheaper  than 
hays; 

But  he  need  take  no  pains  to  convince 

us  he's  not 
(As  his  enemies  say)  the  American  Scott. 
Choose  any  twelve  men,  and  let  C.  read 

aloud 

That  one  of  his  novels  of  which  he 's 

most  proud, 
And  I 'd  lay  any  bet  that,  without  ever 

quitting 

Their  box,  they  'd  be  all,  to  a  man,  for 

acquitting. 
He  has  drawn  you  one  character,  though, 

that  is  new, 
One  wildflower  he 's  plucked  that  is  wet 

with  the  dew 
Of  this  fresh  Western  world,  and,  the 

thing  not  to  mince, 
He  has  done  naught  but  copy  it  ill  ever 

since ; 

His  Indians,  with  proper  respect  be  it 
said, 

Are  just  Natty  Bumpo,  daubed  over 
with  red, 

And  his  very  Long  Toms  are  the  same 
useful  Nat, 

Rigged  up  in  duck  pants  and  a  sou'- 
wester hat 

(Though  once  in  a  Coffin,  a  good  chance 
was  found 

To  have  slipped  the  old  fellow  away 
underground). 

All  his  other  men-figures  are  clothes 
upon  sticks, 

The  derniere  chemise  of  a  man  in  a  fix 

(As  a  captain  besieged,  when  his  garri- 
son 's  small, 

Sets  up  caps  upon  poles  to  be  seen  o'er 
the  wall)  ; 


And  the  women  he  draws  from  one 
model  don't  vary, 

All  sappy  as  maples  and  flat  as  a  prai- 
rie. 

When  a  character 's  wanted,  he  goes  to 
the  task 

As  a  cooper  would  do  in  composing  a 
cask  ; 

He  picks  out  the  staves,  of  their  quali- 
ties heedful, 

Just  hoops  them  together  as  tight  as  is 
needful, 

And,  if  the  best  fortune  should  crown 

the  attempt,  he 
Has  made   at   the   most  something 

wooden  and  empty. 

"  Don't  suppose  I  would  underrate 
Cooper's  abilities  ; 

If  I  thought  you  'd  do  that,  I  should 
feel  very  ill  at  ease  ; 

The  men  who  have  given  to  one  charac- 
ter life 

And  objective  existence  are  not  very 
rife  ; 

You  may  number  them  all,  both  prose- 
writers  and  singers, 

Without  overrunning  the  bounds  of 
your  fingers, 

And  Natty  won't  go  to  oblivion  quicker 

Than  Adams  the  parson  or  Primrose  the 
vicar. 

"  There  is  one  thing  in  Cooper  I  like, 
too,  and  that  is 

That  on  manners  he  lectures  his  coun- 
trymen gratis ; 

Not  precisely  so  either,  because,  for  a 
rarity, 

He  is  paid  for  his  tickets  in  unpopu- 
larity. 

Now  he  may  overcharge  his  American 
pictures, 

But  you  '11  grant  there 's  a  good  deal  of 

truth  in  his  strictures ; 
And  I  honor  the  man  who  is  willing  to 

sink 

Half  his  present  repute  for  the  freedom 
to  think, 

And,  when  he  has  thought,  be  his  cause 

strong  or  weak, 
Will  risk  t'  other  half  for  the  freedom  to 

speak, 

Caring  naught  for  what  vengeance  the 

mob  has  in  store, 
Let  that  mob  be  the  upper  ten  thousand 

or  lower. 


138 


A  FABLE  FOR  CRITICS. 


"There  are  truths  you  Americans 

need  to  be  told, 
And  it  never  '11  refute  them  to  swagger 

and  scold  ; 
John  Bull,  looking  o'er  the  Atlantic,  in 

choler 

At  your  aptness  for  trade,  says  you  wor- 
ship the  dollar ; 

But  to  scorn  such  eye-dollar-try 's  what 
veiy  few  do, 

And  John  goes  to  that  church  as  often 
as  you  do. 

No  matter  what  John  says,  don't  try  to 
outcrow  him, 

'T  is  enough  to  go  quietly  on  and  out- 
grow him ; 

Like  most  fathers,  Bull  hates  to  see 
Number  One 

Displacing  himself  in  the  mind  of  his  son, 

And  detests  the  same  faults  in  himself 
he  'd  neglected 

When  he  sees  them  again  in  his  child's 
glass  reflected ; 

To  love  one  another  you  're  too  like  by 
half; 

If  he  is  a  bull,  you  're  a  pretty  stout  calf, 
And  tear  your  own  pasture  for  naught 

but  to  show 
What  a  nice  pair  of  horns  you  're  begin- 
ning to  grow. 

"  There  are  one  or  two  things  I  should 

just  like  to  hint, 
For  you  don't  often  get  the  truth  told 

you  in  print ; 
The  most  of  you  (this  is  what  strikes  all 

beholders) 
Have  a  mental  and  physical  stoop  in  the 

shoulders  ; 
Though  you  ought  to  be  free  as  the 

winds  and  the  waves, 
You've  the  gait  and  the  manners  of 

runaway  slaves  ; 
Though  you  brag  of  your  NewT  World, 

you  don't  half  believe  in  it  ; 
And  as  much  of  the  Old  as  is  possible 

weave  in  it  ; 
Your  goddess  of  freedom,  a  tight,  buxom 

girl, 

With  lips  like  a  cherry  and  teeth  like  a 
pearl, 

With  eyes  bold  as  Here's,  and  hair  float- 
ing free, 

And  full  of  the  sun  as  the  spray  of  the 
sea, 

Who  can  sing  at  a  husking  or  romp  at  a 
shearing, 


Who  can  trip  through  the  forests  alone 
without  fearing, 

Who  can  drive  home  the  cows  with  a 
song  through  the  grass, 

Keeps  glancing  aside  into  Europe's 
cracked  glass, 

Hides  her  red  hands  in  gloves,  pinches 
up  her  lithe  waist, 

And  makes  herself  wretched  with  trans- 
marine taste  ; 

She  loses  her  fresh  country  charm  when 
she  takes 

Any  mirror  except  her  own  rivers  and 
lakes. 

"  You  steal  Englishmen's  books  and 

think  Englishmen's  thought, 
With  their  salt  on  her  tail  your  wild 

eagle  is  caught ; 
Your  literature  suits  its  each  whisper 

and  motion 
To  what  will  be  thought  of  it  over  the 

ocean  ; 

The  cast  clothes  of  Europe  your  states- 
manship tries 

And  mumbles  again  the  old  blarneys  and 
lies  ;  — 

Forget  Europe  wholly,  your  veins  throb 

with  blood, 
To  which  the  dull  current  in  hers  is  but 

mud  ; 

Let  her  sneer,  let  her  say  your  experi- 
ment fails, 

In  her  voice  there 's  a  tremble  e'en  now 
while  she  rails, 

And  your  shore  will  soon  be  in  the  na- 
ture of  things 

Covered  thick  with  gilt  drift-wood  of 
runaway  kings, 

Where  alone,  as  it  were  in  a  Longfellow's 
Waif, 

Her  fugitive  pieces  will  find  themselves 
safe. 

0  my  friends,  thank  your  God,  if  you 
have  one,  that  he 

'Twixt  the  Old  World  and  you  set  the 
gulf  of  a  sea  ; 

Be  strong -backed,  brown-handed,  up- 
right as  your  pines, 

By  the  scale  of  a  hemisphere  shape  your 
designs, 

Be  true  to  yourselves  and  this  new  nine- 
teenth age, 

As  a  statue  by  Powers,  or  a  picture  by 
Page, 

Plough,  sail,  forge,  build,  carve,  paint, 
all  things  make  new, 


A  FABLE  FOR  CRITICS. 


139 


To  your  own  New-World  instincts  con- 
trive to  be  true, 

Keep  your  ears  open  wide  to  the  Future's 
first  call, 

Be  whatever  you  will,  but  yourselves 
first  of  all, 

Stand  fronting  the  dawn  on  Toil's 
heaven-scaling  peaks, 

And  become  my  new  race  of  more  prac- 
tical Greeks.  — 

Hem !  your  likeness  at  present,  I  shud- 
der to  tell  o't, 

Is  that  you  have  your  slaves,  and  the 
Greek  had  his  helot." 

Here  a  gentleman  present,  who  had 

in  his  attic 
More  pepper  than  brains,  shrieked,  — 

"  The  man 's  a  fanatic, 
I 'm  a  capital  tailor  with  warm  tar  and 

feathers, 

And  will  make  him  a  suit  that  '11  serve 
in  all  weathers ; 

But  we  '11  argue  the  point  first,  I  'm 
willing  to  reason  't, 

Palaver  before  condemnation 's  but  de- 
cent ; 

So,  through  my  humble  person,  Hu- 
manity begs 

Of  the  friends  of  true  freedom  a  loan  of 
bad  eggs." 

But  Apollo  let  one  such  a  look  of  his 
show  forth 

As  when  iji'e  vvktl  eot/ccus,  and  so  forth, 

And  the  gentleman  somehow  slunk  out 
of  the  way, 

But,  as  he  was  going,  gained  courage  to 
say,  — 

"At  slavery  in  the  abstract  my  whole 

soul  rebels, 
I  am  as  strongly  opposed  to 't  as  any  one 

else." 

"  Ay,  no  doubt,  but  whenever  I  've  hap- 
pened to  meet 

With  a  wrong  or  a  crime,  it  is  always 
concrete," 

Answered  Phoebus  severely ;  then  turn- 
ing to  us, 

"The  mistake  of  such  fellows  as  just 

made  the  fuss 
Is  only  in  taking  a  great  busy  nation 
For  a  part  of  their  pitiful  cotton-plan- 
tation. — 

But  there  comes  Miranda,  Zeus !  where 

shall  I  flee  to  ? 
She  has  such  a  penchant  for  bothering 

me  too  ! 


She  always  keeps  asking  if  I  don't  ob- 
serve a 

Particular  likeness  'twixt  her  and  Mi- 
nerva ; 

She  tells  me  my  efforts  in  verse  are  quite 
clever ;  — 

She  \s  been  travelling  now,  and  will  be 
worse  than  ever  ; 

One  would  think,  though,  a  sharp- 
sighted  noter  she  'd  be 

Of  all  that 's  worth  mentioning  over  the 
sea, 

For  a  woman  must  surely  see  well,  if 
she  try, 

The  whole  of  whose  being's  a  cap- 
ital I : 

She  will  take  an  old  notion,  and  make 

it  her  own, 
By.  saying  it  o'er  in   her  Sibylline 

tone, 

Or  persuade  you 't  is  something  tremen- 
dously deep, 

By  repeating  it  so  as  to  put  you  to 
sleep ; 

And  she  well  may  defy  any  mortal  to 
see  through  it, 

When  once  she  has  mixed  up  her  in- 
finite me  through  it. 

There  is  one  thing  she  owns  in  her  own 
single  right, 

It  is  native  and  genuine  —  namely,  her 
spite ; 

Though,  when  acting  as  censor,  she 

privately  blows 
A  censer  of  vanity  'neath  her  own 

nose." 

Here  Miranda   came  up,  and  said, 

"Phoebus!  you  know 
That  the  infinite  Soul  has  its  infinite  woe, 
As  I  ought  to  know,  having  lived  cheek 

by  jowl, 

Since  the  day  I  was  born,  with  the  In- 
finite Soul ; 
I  myself  introduced,  I  myself,  I  alone, 
To  my  Land's  better  life  authors  solely 
my  own, 

Who  the  sad  heart  of  earth  on  their 

shoulders  have  taken, 
Whose  works  sound  a  depth  by  Life's 

quiet  unshaken, 
Such  as  Shakespeare,  for  instance,  the 

Bible,  and  Bacon, 
Not  to  mention  my  own  works  ;  Time's 

nadir  is  fleet, 
And,  as  for  myself,  I 'm  quite  out  of 

conceit  —  " 


140 


A  FABLE  FOR  CRITICS. 


"  Quite  out  of  conceit !  I 'm  en- 
chanted to  hear  it," 

Cried  Apollo  aside.  '  'Who'd  have 
thought  she  was  near  it  ? 

To  be  sure,  one  is  apt  to  exhaust  those 
commodities 

He  uses  too  fast,  yet  in  this  case  as  odd 
it  is 

As  if  Neptune  should  say  to  his  turbots 
and  whitings, 

'  I 'm  as  much  out  of  salt  as  Miranda's 
own  writings ' 

(  Which,  as  she  in  her  own  happy  man- 
ner has  said, 

Sound  a  depth,  for 't  is  one  of  the  func- 
tions of  lead). 

She  often  has  asked  me  if  I  could  not 
find 

A  place  somewhere  near  me  that  suited 

her  mind  ; 
I  know  but  a  single  one  vacant,  which 

she 

With  her  rare  talent  that  way,  would  fit 
to  a  T. 

And  it  would  not  imply  any  pause  or 
cessation 

In  the  work  she  esteems  her  peculiar 

vocation,  — 
She  may  enter  on  duty  to-day,  if  she 

chooses, 

And  remain  Tiring-woman  for  life  to 
the  Muses." 

(Miranda  meanwhile  has  succeeded  in 
driving 

Up  into  a  corner,  in  spite  of  their 
striving, 

A  small  flock  of  terrified  victims,  and 
there, 

With  an  I-turn-the-crank-of-the-Uni- 

verse  air 

And  a  tone  which,  at  least  to  my  fancy, 
appears 

Not  so  much  to  be  entering  as  boxing 
your  ears, 

Is  unfolding  a  tale  (of  herself,  I  sur- 
mise), 

For 't  is  dotted  as  thick  as  a  peacock's 
with  I's). 

Apropos  of  Miranda,  I  '11  rest  on  my 
oars 

And  drift  through  a  trifling  digression 
on  bores, 

For,  though  not  wearing  ear-rings  in 

more  ma  jorum, 
Our  ears  are  kept  bored  just  as  if  we  still 

wore  'em. 


There  was  one  feudal  custom  worth 
keeping,  at  least, 

Roasted  bores  made  a  part  of  each  well- 
ordered  feast, 

And  of  all  quiet  pleasures  the  very  ne 
plus 

Was  in  hunting  wild  bores  as  the  tame 
ones  hunt  us. 

Archseologians,  I  know,  who  have  per- 
sonal fears 

Of  this  wise  application  of  hounds  and 
of  spears, 

Have  tried  to  make  out,  with  a  zeal 

more  than  wonted, 
'T  was  a  kind  of  wild  swine  that  our 

ancestors  hunted  ; 
But  I  '11  never  believe  that  the  age  which 

has  strewn 
Europe  o'er  with  cathedrals,  and  other- 
wise shown 
That  it  knew  what  was  what,  could  by 

chance  not  have  known 
(Spending,  too,  its  chief  time  with  its  buff 

on,  no  doubt), 
Which  beast 't  would  improve  the  world 

most  to  thin  out. 
I  divide  bores  myself,  in  the  manner  of 

rifles, 

Into  two  great  divisions,  regardless  of 
trifles  ;  — 

There 's  your  smooth-bore  and  screw- 
bore,  who  do  not  much  vary 

In  the  weight  of  cold  lead  they  respec- 
tively carry. 

The  smooth-bore  is  one  in  whose  essence 
the  mind 

Not  a  corner  nor  cranny  to  cling  by  can 
find  ; 

You  feel  as  in  nightmares  sometimes, 
when  you  slip 

Down  a  steep  slated  roof,  where  there 's 
nothing  to  grip  ; 

You  slide  and  you  slide,  the  blank  hor- 
ror increases,  — 

You  had  rather  by  far  be  at  once  smashed 
to  pieces  ; 

You  fancy  a  whirlpool  below  white  and 
frothing, 

And  finally  drop  off  and  light  upon  — 
nothing. 

The  screw-bore  has  twists  in  him,  faint 
predilections 

For  going  just  wrong  in  the  tritest  di- 
rections ; 

When  he 's  wrong  he  is  flat,  when  he's 
right  he  can't  show  it, 


A  FABLE  FOE  CRITICS. 


141 


He  '11  tell  you  what  Snooks  said  about 
the  new  poet, 

Or  how  Fogrum  was  outraged  by  Ten- 
nyson's Princess; 

He  has  spent  all  his  spare  time  and  in- 
tellect since  his 

Birth  in  perusing,  on  each  art  and 
science, 

Just  the  books  in  which  no  one  puts  any 
reliance, 

And  though  nemo,  we  're  told,  horis 

omnibus  sapit, 
The  rule  will  not  tit  him,  however  you 

shape  it, 

For  he  has  a  perennial  foison  of  sappi- 
ness  ; 

He  has  just  enough  force  to  spoil  half 

your  day's  happiness, 
And  to  make  him  a  sort  of  mosquito  to 

be  with, 

But  just  not  enough  to  dispute  or  agree 
with. 

These  sketches  I  made  (not  to  be  too 
explicit) 

From  two  honest  fellows  who  made  me 
a  visit, 

And  broke,  like  the  tale  of  the  Bear  and 

the  Fiddle, 
My  reflections  on  Halleck  short  off  by 

the  middle  ; 
1  sha'  n't  now  go  into  the  subject  more 

deeply, 

For  I  notice  that  some  of  my  readers  look 
sleep'ly; 

I  will  barely  remark  that,  'mongst  civi- 
lized nations, 

There 's  none  that  displays  more  exem- 
plary patience 

Under  all  sorts  of  boring,  at  all  sorts  of 
hours, 

From  all  sorts  of  desperate  persons,  than 
ours. 

Not  to  speak  of  our  papers,  our  State 
legislatures, 

And  other  such  trials  for  sensitive  na- 
tures, 

Just  look  for  a  moment  at  Congress,  — 
appalled, 

My  fancy  shrinks  back  from  the  phan- 
tom it  called  ; 

Why,  there  's  scarcely  a  member  un- 
worthy to  frown 

*(If  you  call  Snooks  an  owl,  he  will  show  by 
his  looks 

That  he 's  morally  certain  you  're  jealous  of 
Snooks.) 


'Neath  what   Fourier  nicknames  the 

Boreal  crown; 
Only  think  what  that  infinite  bore- 

pow'r  could  do 
If  applied  with  a  utilitarian  view  ; 
Suppose,  for  example,  we  shipped  it 

with  care 

To  Sahara's  great  desert  and  let  it  bore 
there  ; 

If  they  held  one  short  session  and  did 
nothing  else, 

They 'd  fill  the  whole  waste  with  Arte- 
sian wells. 

But  'tis  time  now  with  pen  phono- 
graphic to  follow 

Through  some  more  of  his  sketches  our 
laughing  Apollo  :  — 

"There  comes  Harry  Franco,  and,  as 

he  draws  near, 
You  find  that 's  a  smile  which  you  took 

for  a  sneer  ; 
One  half  of  him  contradicts  t'  other  ; 

his  wont 

Is  to  say  very  sharp  things  and  do  very 
blunt  ; 

His  manner 's  as  hard  as  his  feelings  are 
tender, 

And  a  sortie  he  '11  make  when  he  means 

to  surrender ; 
He's  in  joke  half  the  time  when  he 

seems  to  be  sternest, 
When  he  seems  to  be  joking,  be  sure 

he  's  in  earnest  ; 
He  has  common  sense  in  a  way  that 's 

uncommon, 
Hates   humbug   and  cant,  loves  his 

friends  like  a  woman, 
Builds  bis  dislikes  of  cards  and  his 

friendships  of  oak, 
Loves  a  prejudice  better  than  aught  but 

a  joke, 

Is  half  upright  Quaker,  half  downright 

Come-outer, 
Loves  Freedom  too  well  to  go  stark  mad 

about  her, 
Quite  artless  himself  is  a  lover  of  Art, 
Shuts  you  out  of  his  secrets  and  into  his 

heart, 

And  though  not  a  poet,  yet  all  must 
admire 

In  his  letters  of  Pinto  his  skill  on  the  liar. 

"There  comes  Poe,  with  his  raven, 
like  Barnaby  Rudge, 
Three  fifths  of  him  genius   and  two 
fifths  sheer  fudge, 


142 


A  FABLE  FOR  CRITICS. 


Who  talks  like  a  book  of  iambs  and 
pentameters, 

In  a 'way  to  make  people  of  common 
sense  damn  metres, 

Who  has  written  some  things  quite  the 
best  of  their  kind, 

But  the  heart  somehow  seems  all 
squeezed  out  by  the  mind, 

Who  —  But  hey-day  !  What 's  this  ? 
Messieurs  Mathews  and  Poe, 

You  must  n't  fling  mud-balls  at  Long- 
fellow so, 

Does  it  make  a  man  worse  that  his  char- 
acter's such 

As  to  make  his  friends  love  him  (as  you 
think)  too  much  ? 

Why,  there  is  not  a  bard  at  this  mo- 
ment alive 

More  willing  than  he  that  his  fellows 
«  should  thrive  ; 

While  you  are  abusing  him  thus,  even 
now 

He  would  help  either  one  of  you  out  of 
a  slough ; 

You  may  say  that  he 's  smooth  and  all 

that  till  you  're  hoarse, 
But  remember  that  elegance  also  is  force ; 
After  polishing  granite  as  much  as  you 
will, 

The  heart  keeps  its  tough  old  persis- 
tency still  ; 

Deduct  all  you  can,  that  still  keeps  you 
at  bay ; 

Why,  he  '11  live  till  men  weary  of 

Collins  and  Gray. 
I  'm  not  over-fond  of  Greek  metres  in 

English, 

To  me  rhyme  's  a  gain,  so  it  be  not  too 
jinglish, 

And  your  modern  hexameter  verses  are 
no  more 

Like  Greek  ones  than  sleek  Mr.  Pope  is 

like  Homer ; 
As  the  roar  of  the  sea  to  the  coo  of  a 

pigeon  is, 

So,  compared  to  your  moderns,  sounds 
old  Melesigeries ; 

I  may  be  too  partial,  the  reason,  per- 
haps, o't  is 

That  I  've  heard  the  old  blind  man  re- 
cite his  own  rhapsodies, 

And  my  ear  with  that  music  impreg- 
nate may  be, 

Like  the  poor  exiled  shell  with  the  soul 
of  the  sea, 

Or  as  one  can't  bear  Strauss  when  his 
nature  is  cloven  | 


To  its  deeps  within  deeps  by  the  stroke 

of  Beethoven  ; 
But,  set  that  aside,  and  't  is  truth  that 

I  speak, 

Had  Theocritus  written  in  English,  not 
Greek, 

I  believe  that  his  exquisite  sense  would 

scarce  change  a  line 
In  that  rare,  tender,  virgin-like  pastoral 

Evangeline. 
That 's  not  ancient  nor  modern,  its 

place  is  apart 
Where  time  has  no  sway,  in  the  realm 

of  pure  Art, 
'Tis  a  shrine  of  retreat  from  Earth's 

hubbub  and  strife 
As  quiet  and  chaste  as  the  author's  own 

life. 

"  There  comes  Philothea,  her  face  all 
aglow, 

She  has  just  been  dividing  some  poor 

creature's  woe, 
And  can't  tell  which  pleases  her  most, 

to  relieve 

His  want,  or  his  story  to  hear  and  be- 
lieve ; 

No  doubt  against  many  deep  griefs  she 
prevails, 

For  her  ear  is  the  refuge  of  destitute 
tales ; 

She  knows  well  that  silence  is  sorrow's 
best  food, 

And  that  talking  draws  off  from  the 

heart  its  black  blood, 
So  she  '11  listen  with  patience  and  let 

you  unfold 
Your  bundle  of  rags  as 't  were  pure  cloth 

of  gold, 

Which,  indeed,  it  all  turns  to  as  soon 
as  she 's  touched  it, 

And  (to  borrow  a  phrase  from  the  nur- 
sery) mucked  it  ; 

She  has  such  a  musical  taste,  she  will 
go 

Any  distance  to  hear  one  who  draws  a 

long  bow  ; 
She  will  swallow  a  wonder  by  mere 

might  and  main, 
And  thinks  it  Geometry's  fault  if  she 's 

fain 

To  consider  things  flat,  inasmuch  as 

they  're  plain  ; 
Facts  with  her  are  accomplished,  as 

Frenchmen  would  say  — 
They  will  prove  all  she  wishes  them  to 
either  way,  — 


A  FABLE  FOE  CRITICS. 


143 


And,  as  fact  lies  on  this  side  or  that,  we 
must  try, 

If  we  're  seeking  the  truth,  to  find 

where  it  don't  lie  ; 
I  was  telling  her  once  of  a  marvellous 

aloe 

That  for  thousands  of  years  had  looked 

spindling  and  sallow, 
And,  though  nursed  by  the  fruitfullest 

powers  of  mud, 
Had  never  vouchsafed  e'en  so  much  as  a 

bud, 

Till  its  owner  remarked  (as  a  sailor,  you 
know, 

Often  will  in  a  calm)  that  it  never  would 
blow, 

For  he  wished  to  exhibit  the  plant,  and 
designed 

That  its  blowing  should  help  him  in 

raising  the  wind  ; 
At  last  it  was  told  him  that  if  he  should 

water 

Its  roots  with  the  blood  of  his  unmar- 
ried daughter 

(Who  was  born,  as  her  mother,  a  Cal- 
vinist,  said, 

With  William  Law's  serious  caul  on 
her  head), 

It  would  blow  as  the  obstinate  breeze 
did  when  by  a 

Like  decree  of  her  father  died  Iphigenia ; 

At  first  he  declared  he  himself  would  be 
blowed 

Ere  his  conscience  with  such  a  foul 

crime  he  would  load, 
But  the  thought,  coming  oft,  grew  less 

dark  than  before, 
And  bemused,  as  each  creditor  knocked 

at  his  door, 
If  this  were  but  done  they  would  dun 

me  no  more ; 
I   told   Philothea   his  struggles  and 

doubts, 

And  how  he  considered  the  ins  and  the 
outs 

Of  the  visions  he  had,  and  the  dreadful 
dyspepsy, 

How  he  went  to  the  seer  that  lives  at 

Po'keepsie, 
How  the  seer  advised  him  to  sleep  on  it 

first, 

And  to  read  his  big  volume  in  case  of 
the  worst, 

And  further  advised  he  should  pay  him 

five  dollars 
For  writing  J^um,  ?§uttt,  on  his  wrist-  j 

bands  and  collars; 


Three  years  and  ten  days  these  dark 

words  he  had  studied 
When  the  daughter  was  missed,  and  the 

aloe  had  budded  ; 
I  told  how  he  watched  it  grow  large  and 

more  large,- 
And  wondered  how  much  for  the  show 

he  should  charge,  — 
She  had  listened  with  utter  indifference 

to  this,  till 
I  told  how  it  bloomed,  and,  discharging 

its  pistil 

With  an  aim  the  Eumenides  dictated, 
shot 

The  botanical  filicide  dead  on  the  spot ; 
It  had  blown,  but  he  reaped  not  his 

horrible  gains, 
For  it  blew  with  such  force  as  to  blow 

out  his  brains, 
And  the  crime  was  blown  also,  because 

on  the  wad, 
Which  was  paper,  was  writ  *  Visitation 

of  God,' 

As  well  as  a  thrilling  account  of  the  deed 
Which  the  coroner  kindly  allowed  me  to 
read. 

"  Well,  my  friend  took  this  story  up 
just,  to  be  sure, 

As  one  might  a  poor  foundling  that 's 
laid  at  one's  door  ; 

She  combed  it  and  washed  it  and  clothed 
it  and  fed  it, 

And  as  if  't  were  her  own  child  most 
tenderly  bred  it, 

Laid  the  scene  (of  the  legend,  I  mean) 
far  away  a- 

-mong  the  green  vales  underneath  Hima- 
laya, 

And  by  artist-like  touches,  laid  on  here 
and  there, 

Made  the  whole  thing  so  touching,  I 

frankly  declare 
I  have  read  it  all  thrice,  and,  perhaps  I 

am  weak, 

But  I  found  every  time  there  were  tears 
on  my  cheek. 

"  The  pole,  science  tells  us,  the  mag- 
net controls, 
But  she  is  a  magnet  to  emigrant  Poles, 
And  folks  with  a  mission  that  nobody 
knows, 

Throng  thickly  about  her  as  bees  round 
a  rose ; 

She  can  fill  up  the  carets  in  such,  make 
their  scope 


144 


A  FABLE  FOR  CRITICS. 


Converge  to  some  focus  of  rational  hope, 
And,  with  sympathies  fresh  as  the  morn- 
ing, their  gall 
Can  transmute  into  honey, —  but  this  is 
not  all  ; 

Not  only  for  those  she  has  solace,  0,  say, 
Vice's  desperate  nursling  adrift  in  Broad- 
way, 

"Who  clingest,  with  all  that  is  left  of  thee 
human, 

To  the  last  slender  spar  from  the  wreck 

of  the  woman, 
Hast  thou  not  found  one  shore  where 

those  tired  drooping  feet 
Could  reach  firm  mother-earth,  one  full 

heart  on  whose  beat 
The  soothed  head  in  silence  reposing 

could  hear 
The  chimes  of  far  childhood  throb  back 

on  the  ear? 
Ah,  there's  many  a  beam  from  the  foun- 
tain of  day 
That,  to  reach  us  unclouded,  must  pass, 

on  its  way, 
Through  the  soul  of  a  woman,  and  hers 

is  wide  ope 
To  the  influence  of  Heaven  as  the  blue 

eyes  of  Hope  ; 
Yes,  a  great  heart  is  hers,  one  that  dares 

to  go  in 

To  the  prison,  the  slave-hut,  the  alleys 
of  sin, 

And  to  bring  into  each,  or  to  find  there, 
some  line 

Of  the  never  completely  out-trampled 
divine  ; 

If  her  heart  at  high  floods  swamps  her 

brain  now  and  then, 
'T  is  but  richer  for  that  when  the  tide 

ebbs  agen, 
As,  after  old  Nile  has  subsided,  his 

plain 

Overflows  with  a  second  broad  deluge  of 
grain  ; 

"What  a  wealth  would  it  bring  to  the 
narrow  and  sour 

Could  they  be  as  a  Child  but  for  one  lit- 
tle hour  ! 

""What!   Irving?    thrice  welcome, 
warm  heart  and  fine  brain, 
You  bring  back  the  happiest  spirit  from 
Spain, 

And  the  gravest  sweet  humor,  that  ever 

were  there 
Since  Cervantes  met  death  in  his  gentle 

despair ; 


Nay,  don't  be  embarrassed,  nor  look  so 
beseeching,  — 

I  sha'  n't  run  directly  against  my  own 
preaching, 

And,  having  just  laughed  at  their  Raph- 
aels and  Dantes, 

Go  to  setting  you  up  beside  matchless 
Cervantes  ; 

But  allow  me  to  speak  what  I  honestly 
feel,  — 

To  a  true  poet-heart  add  the  fun  of  Dick 

Steele, 

Throw  in  all  of  Addison,  minus  the 
chill, 

With  the  whole  of  that  partnership's 

stock  and  good-will, 
Mix  well,  and  while  stirring,  hum  o'er, 

as  a  spell, 

The  fine  old  English  Gentleman,  sim- 
mer it  well, 

Sweeten  just  to  your  own  private  liking, 
then  strain, 

That  only  the  finest  and  clearest  remain, 

Let  it  stand  out  of  doors  till  a  soul  it 
receives 

From  the  warm  lazy  sun  loitering  down 

through  green  leaves, 
And  you'll  find  a  choice  nature,  not 

wholly  deserving 
A  name  either  English  or  Yankee,  — 

just  Irving. 

"  There  goes,  —  but  stet  nominis  um- 
bra, —  his  name 

You  '11  be  glad  enough,  some  day  or 
other,  to  claim, 

And  will  all  crowd  about  him  and  swear 
that  you  knew  him 

If  some  English  hack-critic  should 
chance  to  review  him. 

The  old  porcos  ante  ne  projiciatis 

Margaritas,  for  him  you  have  verified 
gratis  ; 

"What  matters  his  name  ?   "Why,  it  may 

be  Sylvester, 
Judd,  Junior,  or  Junius,  Ulysses,  or 

Nestor, 

For  aught  /  know  or  care  ;  't  is  enough 

that  I  look 
On  the  author  of  'Margaret,'  the  first 

Yankee  book 
With  the  soul  of  Down  East  in 't,  and 

things  farther  East, 
As  far  as  the  threshold  of  morning,  at 

least, 

Where  awaits  the  fair  dawn  of  the  sim- 
ple and  true, 


A  FABLE  FOR  CRITICS. 


145 


Of  the  day  that  comes  slowly  to  make 

all  things  new. 
'T  has  a  smack  of  pine  woods,  of  bare 

field  and  bleak  hill, 
Such  as  only  the  breed  of  the  Mayflower 

could  till ; 
The  Puritan 's  shown  in  it,  tough  to  the 

core, 

Such  as  prayed,  smiting  Agag  on  red 

Marston  Moor: 
With  an  unwilling  humor,  half  choked 

by  the  drouth 
In  brown  hollows  about  the  inhospitable 

mouth ; 

With  a  soul  full  of  poetry,  though  it  has 
qualms 

About  finding  a  happiness  out  of  the 
Psalms  ; 

Full  of  tenderness,  too,  though  it  shrinks 

in  the  dark, 
Hamadryad-like,  under  the  coarse,  shaggy 

bark ; 

That  sees  visions,  knows  wrestlings  of 

God  with  the  Will, 
And  has  its  own  Sinais  and  thunderings 

still." 

Here,  —  "Forgive    me,    Apollo,  I 

cried,  "while  I  pour 
My  heart  out  to  my  birthplace :  0  loved 

more  and  more 
Dear  Baystate,  from  whose  rocky  bosom 

thy  sons 

Should  suck  milk,  strong-will-giving, 

brave,  such  as  runs 
In  the  veins  of  old  Graylock  — who  is  it 

that  dares 

Call  thee  pedler,  a  soul  wrapped  in  bank- 
books and  shares  ? 

It  is  false  !  She 's  a  Poet !  I  see,  as  I 
write, 

Along  the  far  railroad  the  steam-snake 

glide  white, 
The  cataract-throb  of  her  mill-hearts  I 

hear, 

The  swift  strokes  of  trip-hammers  weary 
my  ear, 

Sledges  ring  upon  anvils,  through  logs 

the  saw  screams, 
Blocks  swing  to  their  place,  beetles 

drive  home  the  beams  :  — 
It  is  songs  such  as  these  that  she  croons 

to  the  din 

Of  her  fast- flying  shuttles,  year  out  and 
year  in, 

While  from  earth's  farthest  corner  there 
comes  not  a  breeze 

10 


But  wafts  her  the  buzz  of  her  gold- 
gleaning  bees : 

What  though  those  horn  hands  have  as 
yet  found  small  time 

For  painting  and  sculpture  and  music 
and  rhyme  ? 

These  will  come  in  due  order ;  the  need 
that  pressed  sorest 

Was  to  vanquish  the  seasons,  the  ocean, 
the  forest, 

To  bridle  and  harness  the  rivers,  the 
steam, 

Making  that  whirl  her  mill-wheels,  this 

tug  in  her  team, 
To  vassalize  old  tyrant  Winter,  and  make 
Him  delve  surlily  for  her  on  river  and 

lake ;  — 

When  this  New  World  was  parted,  she 
strove  not  to  shirk 

Her  lot  in  the  heirdom,  the  tough,  si- 
lent Work, 

The  hero-share  ever,  from  Herakles  down 

To  Odin,  the  Earth's  iron  sceptre  and 
crown  : 

Yes,  thou  dear,  noble  Mother!  if  ever 

men's  praise 
Could  be  claimed  for  creating  heroical 

lays, 

Thou  hast  won  it ;  if  ever  the  laurel  di- 
vine 

Crowned  the  Maker  and  Builder,  that 

glory  is  thine  ! 
Thy  songs  are  right  epic,  they  tell  how 

this  rude 

Rock-rib  of  our  earth  here  was  tamed  and 
subdued  ; 

Thou  hast  written  them  plain  on  the 

face  of  the  planet 
In  brave,  deathless  letters  of  iron  and 

granite  ; 

Thou  hast  printed  them  deep  for  all 

time  ;  they  are  set 
From  the  same  runic  type-fount  and 

alphabet 

With  thy  stout  Berkshire  hills  and  the 
arms  of  thy  Bay,  — 

They  are  staves  from  the  burly  old  May- 
flower lay. 

If  the  drones  of  the  Old  World,  in  queru- 
lous ease, 

Ask  thy  Art  and  thy  Letters,  point 

proudly  to  these, 
Or,  if  they  deny  these  are  Letters  and  Art, 
Toil  on  with  the  same  old  invincible 

heart ; 

Thou  art  rearing  the  pedestal  broad- 
based  and  grand 


146 


A  FABLE  FOR  CRITICS. 


Whereon  the  fair  shapes  of  the  Artist 

shall  stand, 
And  creating,  through  labors  undaunted 

and  long, 

The  theme  for  all  Sculpture  and  Paint- 
ing and  Song ! 

"  But  my  good  mother  Baystate  wants 
no  praise  of  mine, 
She  learned  from  her  mother  a  precept 
divine 

About  something  that  butters  no  pars- 
nips, her  forte 

In  an  other  direction  lies,  workisher  sport 

(Though  she  '11  courtesy  and  set  her  cap 
straight,  that  she  will, 

If  you  talk  about  Plymouth  and  red 
Bunker's  hill). 

Dear,  notable  good  wife !  by  this  time  of 
night, 

Her  hearth  is  swept  clean,  and  her  fire 

burning  bright, 
And  she  sits  in  a  chair  (of  home  plan  and 

make)  rocking, 
Musing  much,  all  the  while,  as  she  darns 

on  a  stocking, 
Whether  turkeys  will  come  pretty  high 

next  Thanksgiving, 
Whether  flour  '11  be  so  dear,  for,  as  sure 

as  she 's  living, 
She  will  use  rye-and-injun  then,  whether 

the  pig 

By  this  time  ain't  got  pretty  tolerable  big, 
And  whether  to  sell  it  outright  will  be  best, 
Or  to  smoke  hams  and  shoulders  and 

salt  down  the  rest,  — 
At  this  minute,  she  'dswop  all  my  verses, 

ah,  cruel ! 

For  the  last  patent  stove  that  is  saving 
of  fuel ; 

So  I  '11  just  let  Apollo  go  on,  for  his  phiz 
Shows  I  've  kept  him  awaiting  too  long 
as  it  is." 

"  If  our  friend,  there,  who  seems  a 
reporter,  is  done 
With  his  burst  of  emotion,  why,  /  will 
go  on," 

Said  Apollo ;  some  smiled,  and,  indeed, 

I  must  own 
There  was  something  sarcastic,  perhaps, 

in  his  tone ;  — 

u  There 's  Holmes,  who  is  matchless 
among  you  for  wit ; 
A  Leyden-jar  always  full-charged,  from 
which  flit 


The  electrical  tingles  of  hit  after 
hit ; 

In  long  poems 't  is  painful  sometimes, 

and  invites 
A  thought  of  the  way  the  new  Telegraph 

writes, 

Which  pricks  down  its  little  sharp  sen- 
tences spitefully 

As  if  you  got  more  than  you 'd  title  to 
rightfully, 

And  you  find  yourself  hoping  its  wild 
father  Lightning 

Would  flame  in  for  a  second  and  give 
you  a  fright'ning. 

He  has  perfect  sway  of  what  /  call  a 
sham  metre, 

But  many  admire  it,  the  English  pen- 
tameter, 

And  Campbell,  I  think,  wrote  most  com- 
monly worse, 

With  less  nerve,  swing,  and  fire  in  the 
same  kind  of  verse, 

Nor  e'er  achieved  aught  in  't  so  worthy 
of  praise 

As  the  tribute  of  Holmes  to  the  grand 

Marseillaise. 
You  went  crazy  last  year  over  Bulwer's 

New  Timon ;  — 
Why,  if  B.,  to  the  day  of  his  dying, 

should  rhyme  on, 
Heaping  verses  on  verses  and  tomes 

upon  tomes, 
He  could  ne'er  reach  the  best  point  and 

vigor  of  Holmes. 
His  are  just  the  fine  hands,  too,  to 

weave  you  a  lyric 
Full  of  fancy,  fun,  feeling,  or  spiced 

with  satyric 
In  a  measure  ^o  kindly,  you  doubt  if 

the  toes 

That  are  trodden  upon  are  your  own  or 
your  foes'. 

" There  is   Lowell,  who's  striving 

Parnassus  to  climb 
With  a  whole  bale  of  isms  tied  together 

with  rhyme, 
He  might  get  on  alone,  spite  of  bram- 
bles and  boulders, 
But  he  can't  with  that  bundle  he  has  on 

his  shoulders, 
The  top  of  the  hill  he  will  ne'er  come 

nigh  reaching 
Till  he  learns   the  distinction  'twixt 

singing  and  preaching  ; 
His  lyre  has  some  chords  that  would 

ring  pretty  well, 


A  FABLE  FOR  CRITICS. 


147 


But  he.  'd  rather  by  half  make  a  drum 

of  the  shell, 
And  rattle  away  till  he 's  old  as  Me- 

thusalem, 

At  the  head  of  a  march  to  the  last  new 
Jerusalem. 

"  There  goes  Halleck,  whose  Fanny 's 

a  pseudo  Don  Juan, 
With  the  wickedness  out  that  gave  salt 

to  the  true  one, 
He 's  a  wit,  though,  I  hear,  of  the  very 

first  order, 
And  once  made  a  pun  on  the  words  soft 

Recorder  ; 

More  than  this,  he's  a  very  great  poet, 
I  'm  told, 

And  has  had  his  works  published  in 
crimson  and  gold, 

With  something  they  call  '  Illustra- 
tions,' to  wit, 

Like  those  with  which  Chapman  ob- 
scured Holy  Writ,* 

Which  are  said  to  illustrate,  because,  as 
I  view  it, 

Like  lucus  a  non,  they  precisely  don't  do 
-  it; 

Let  a  man  who  can  write  what  himself 

understands 
Keep  clear,  if  he  can,  of  designing  men's 

hands, 

Who  bury  the  sense,  if  there 's  any 
worth  having, 

And  then  very  honestly  call  it  engrav- 
ing. 

But,  to  quit  badinage,  which  there  is  n't 

much  wit  in, 
Halleck 's  better,  I  doubt  not,  than  all 

he  has  written  ; 
In  his  verse  a  clear  glimpse  you  will 

frequently  find, 
If  not  of  a  great,  of  a  fortunate  mind, 
Which  contrives  to  be  true  to  its  natural 

loves 

In  a  world  of  back-offices,  ledgers,  and 
stoves. 

When  his' heart  breaks  away  from  the 

brokers  and  banks, 
And  kneels  in  his  own  private  shrine  to 

give  thanks, 
There 's  a  genial  manliness  in  him  that 

earns 

Our  sincerest  respect  (read,  for  instance, 
his  "  Burns  "), 

*  (Cuts  rightly  called  wooden,  as   all  must 
admit.) 


And  we  can't  but  regret  (seek  excuse 
where  we  may) 

That  so  much  of  a  man  has  been  ped- 
dled away. 

"  But  what 's  that  ?  a  mass-meeting  ? 
No,  there  come  in  lots, 
The  American  Bulwers,  Disraelis,  and 
Scotts, 

And  in  short  the  American  everything- 
elses, 

Each  charging  the  others  with  envies  and 
jealousies  ;  — 

By  the  way,  'tis  a  fact  that  displays 
what  profusions 

Of  all  kinds  of  greatness  bless  free  insti- 
tutions, 

That  while  the  Old  World  has  produced 

barely  eight 
Of  such  poets  as  all  men  agree  to  call 

great, 

And  of  other  great  characters  hardly  a 
score 

(One  might  safely  say  less  than  that 

rather  than  more), 
With  you  every  year  a  whole  crop  is 

begotten, 

They  're  as  much  of  a  staple  as  corn  is, 
or  cotton  ; 

Why,  there 's  scarcely  a  huddle  of  log- 
huts  and  shanties 

That  has  not  brought  forth  its  own  Mil- 
tons  and  Dantes  ; 

I  myself  know  ten  Byrons,  one  Cole- 
ridge, three  Shelleys, 

Two  Raphaels,  six  Titians,  (I  think)  one 
Apelles, 

Leonardos  and  Bubenses  plenty  as 
lichens, 

One  (but  that  one  is  plenty)  American 
Dickens, 

A  whole  flock  of  Lambs,  any  number  of 

Tennysons,  — 
In  short,  if  a  man  has  the  luck  to  have 

any  sons, 

He  may  feel  pretty  certain  that  one  out 
of  twain 

Will  be  some  very  great  person  over  again. 
There  is  one  inconvenience  in  all  this, 
which  lies 

In  the  fact  that  by  contrast  we  estimate 
size,* 

*  That  is  in  most  cases  we  do,  but  not  all, 
Past  a  doubt,  there  are  men  who  are  innately 
small, 

Such  as  Blank,  who,  without  being  'minished 
a  tittle. 

Might  stand  for  a  type  of  the  Absolute  Little. 


148 


A  FABLE  FOR  CRITICS. 


And,  where  there  are  none  except  Ti- 
tans, great  stature 

Is  only  a  simple  proceeding  of  nature. 

What  putf  the  strained  sails  of  your 
praise  will  you  furl  at,  if 

The  calmest  degree  that  you  know  is 
superlative  ? 

At  Rome,  all  whom  Charon  took  into 
his  wherry  must, 

As  a  matter  of  course,  be  well  issimust 
and  errimust, 

A  Greek,  too,  could  feel,  while  in  that 
famous  boat  he  tost, 

That  his  friends  would  take  care  he  was 
i<TTost  and  wrarost, 

And  formerly  we,  as  through  grave- 
yards we  past, 

Thought  the  world  went  from  bad  to 
worst  fearfully  fast ; 

Let  us  glance  for  a  moment,  't  is  well 
worth  the  pains, 

And  note  what  an  average  graveyard 
contains  ; 

There  lie  levellers  levelled,  duns  done 

up  themselves, 
There  are  booksellers  finally  laid  on  their 

shelves, 

Horizontally  there  lie  upright  politi- 
cians, 

Dose-a-dose  with  their  patients  sleep 

faultless  physicians, 
There  are  slave-drivers  quietly  whipped 

underground, 
There  bookbinders,  done  up  in  boards, 

are  fast  bound, 
There  card-players  wait  till  the  last 

trump  be  played, 
There  all  the  choice  spirits  get  finally 

laid, 

There  the  babe  that 's  unborn  is  supplied 

with  a  berth, 
There  men  without  legs  get  their  six 

feet  of  earth, 
There  lawyers  repose,  each  wrapped  up 

in  his  case, 
There  seekers  of  office  are  sure  of  a 

place, 

There  defendant  and  plaintiff  get  equally 
cast, 

There  shoemakers  quietly  stick  to  the 
last, 

There  brokers  at  length  become  silent 
as  stocks, 

There  stage-drivers  sleep  without  quit- 
ting their  box, 

And  so  forth  and  so  forth  and  so  forth 
and  so  on, 


With  this  kind  of  stuff  one  might  end- 
lessly go  on  ; 

To  come  to  the  point,  I  may  safely  as- 
sert you 

Will  find  in  each  yard  every  cardinal 
virtue  ;  * 

Each  has  six  truest  patriots  :  four  dis- 
coverers of  ether, 

Who  never  had  thought  on 't  nor  men- 
tioned it  either  ; 

Ten  poets,  the  greatest  who  ever  wrote 
rhyme  : 

Two  hundred  and  forty  first  men  of 

their  time  : 
One  person  whose  portrait  just  gave  the 

least  hint 

Its  original  had  a  most  horrible  squint : 
One  critic,  most  (what  do  they  call 

it  ?)  suggestive, 
Who  never  had  used  the  phrase  ob-  or 

subjective  : 
Forty  fathers  of  Freedom,  of  whom 

twenty  bred 
Their  sons  for  the  rice-swamps,  at  so 

much  a  head, 
And  their  daughters  for —  faugh  !  thirty 

mothers  of  Gracchi  : 
Non-resistants  who  gave  many  a  spirit- 
ual black -eye  : 
Eight  true  friends  of  their  kind,  one  of 

whom  was  a  jailer: 
Four  captains  almost  as  astounding  as 

Taylor  : 

Two  dozen  of  Italy's  exiles  who  shoot 
us  his 

Kaisership  daily,  stern  pen-and-ink 
Brutuses, 

Who,  in   Yankee  back-parlors,  with 

crucified  smile,  t 
Mount  serenely  their  country's  funereal 

P4e  : 

Ninety-nine  Irish  heroes,  ferocious  re- 
bellers 

'Gainst  the  Saxon  in  cis-marine  garrets 

and  cellars, 
Who  shake  their  dread  fists  o'er  the  sea 

and  all  that,  — 
As  long  as  a  copper  drops  into  the  hat : 
Nine   hundred   Teutonic  republicans 

stark 

From  Vaterland's  battles  just  won  —  in 
the  Park, 

*  (And  at  this  just  conclusion  will  surely  ar- 
rive, 

That  the  goodness  of  earth  is  more  dead  than 
alive.) 

t  Not  forgetting  their  tea  and  their  toast, 
though,  the  while. 


A  FABLE  FOR  CRITICS. 


149 


Who  the  happy  profession  of  martyrdom 
take 

Whenever  it  gives  them  a  chance  at  a 
steak  : 

Sixty-two  second  Washingtons  :  two  or 

three  Jacksons  : 
And  so  many  everythings-else  that  it 

racks  one's 
Poor  memory  too  much  to  continue  the 

list, 

Especially  now  they  no  longer  exist  ;  — 
I  would  merely  observe  that  you  've 

taken  to  giving 
The  puffs  that  belong  to  the  dead  to  the 

living, 

And  that  somehow  your  trump-of-con- 
temporary-doom's  tones 

Is  tuned  after  old  dedications  and  tomb- 
stones." 

Here  the  critic  came  in  and  a  thistle 

presented  —  * 
From  a  frown  to  a  smile  the  god's  fea- 
tures relented, 
As  he  stared  at  his  envoy,  who,  swelling 

with  pride, 
To  the  god's  asking  look,  nothing 

daunted,  replied,  — 
'  *  You  're  surprised,  I  suppose,  I  was 

absent  so  long, 
But  your  godship  respecting  the  lilies 

was  wrong; 
I  hunted  the  garden  from  one  end  to 

t'  other, 

And  got  no  reward  but  vexation  and 
bother, 

Till,  tossed  out  with  weeds  in  a  corner 
to  wither, 

This  one  lily  I  found  and  made  haste  to 
bring  hither." 

"  Did  he  think  I  had  given  him  a  book 

to  review  ? 
I  ought  to  have  known  what  the  fellow 

would  do," 
Muttered  Phoebus  aside,  "for  a  thistle 

will  pass 

Beyond  doubt  for  the  queen  of  all  flow- 
ers with  an  ass ; 

He  has  chosen  in  just  the  same  way  as 
he  'd  choose 

His  specimens  out  of  the  books  he  re- 
views ; 

*  Turn  back  now  to  page  —  goodness  only 
knows  what, 
And  take  a  fresh  hold  on  the  thread  of  my 
plot 


And  now,  as  this  offers  an  excellent  text, 
I  '11  give  'em  some  brief  hints  on  criti- 
cism next." 
So,  musing  a  moment,  he  turned  to  the 
crowd, 

And,  clearing  his  voice,  spoke  as  follows 
aloud :  — 

"My  friends,  in  the  happier  days  of 
the  muse, 

We  were  luckily  free  from  such  things 

as  reviews  ; 
Then  naught  came  between  with  its  fog 

to  make  clearer 
The  heart  of  the  poet  to  that  of  his 

hearer ; 

Then  the  poet  brought  heaven  to  the 
people,  and  they 

Felt  that  they,  too,  were  poets  in  hear- 
ing his  lay ; 

Then  the  poet  was  prophet,  the  past  in 
his  soul 

Precreated  the  future,  both  parts  of  one 
whole  ; 

Then  for  him  there  was  nothing  too  great 

or  too  small, 
For  one  natural  deity  sanctified  all ; 
Then  the  bard  owned  no  clipper  and 

meter  of  moods 
Save  the  spirit  of  silence  that  hovers  and 

broods 

O'er  the  seas  and  the  mountains,  the 

rivers  and  woods ; 
He  asked  not  earth's  verdict,  forgetting 

the  clods, 

His  soul  soared  and  sang  to  an  audience 
of  gods ; 

'T  was  for  them  that  he  measured  the 

thought  and  the  line, 
And  shaped  for  their  vision  the  perfect 

design, 

With  as  glorious  a  foresight,  a  balance 
as  true, 

As  swung  out  the  worlds  in  the  infinite 
blue ; 

Then  a  glory  and  greatness  invested 
man's  heart, 

The  universal,  which  now  stands  es- 
tranged and  apart, 

In  the  free  individual  moulded,  was 
Art; 

Then  the  forms  of  the  Artist  seemed 

thrilled  with  desire 
For  something  as  yet  unattained,  fuller, 

higher, 

As  once  with  her  lips,  lifted  hands,  and 
eyes  listening, 


150 


A  FABLE  FOR  CRITICS. 


And  her  whole  upward  soul  in  her  coun- 
tenance glistening, 

Eurydice  stood  —  like  a  beacon  unfired, 

Which,  once  touched  with  flame,  will 
leap  heav'nward  inspired  — 

And  waited  with  answering  kindle  to 
mark 

The  first  gleam  of  Orpheus  that  pained 

the  red  Dark. 
Then  painting,  song,  sculpture  did  more 

than  relieve 
The  need  that  men  feel  to  create  and 

believe, 

And  as,  in  all  beauty,  who  listens  with 
love 

Hears  these  words  oft  repeated  —  '  be- 
yond and  above,' 

So  these  seemed  to  be  but  the  visible 
sign 

Of  the  grasp  of  the  soul  after  things  more 
divine ; 

They  were  ladders  the  Artist  erected  to 
climb 

O'er  the  narrow  horizon  of  space  and  of 
time, 

And  we  see  there  the  footsteps  by  which 

men  had  gained 
To  the  one  rapturous  glimpse  of  the 

never-attained, 
As  shepherds  could  erst  sometimes  trace 

in  the  sod 

The  last  spurning  print  of  a  sky-cleaving 
god. 

"But  now,  on  the  poet's  dis-privacied 
moods 

With  do  this  and  do  that  the  pert  critic 
intrudes  ; 

While  he  thinks  he 's  been  barely  fulfill- 
ing his  duty 

To  interpret  'twixt  men  and  their  own 
sense  of  beauty, 

And  has  striven,  while  others  sought 
honor  or  pelf, 

To  make  his  kind  happy  as  he  was  him- 
self, 

He  finds  he's  been  guilty  of  horrid 
offences 

In  all  kinds  of  moods,  numbers,  genders, 

and  tenses  ; 
He 's  been  ob  and  sw&jective,  what  Kettle 

calls  Pot, 

Precisely,  at  all  events,  what  he  ought  not, 
You  have  done  this,  says  one  judge  ; 

done  that,  says  another ; 
You  should  have  done  this,  grumbles 

one  ;  that,  says  't  other  ; 


Never  mind  what  he  touches,  one  shrieks 

out  Taboo! 
And  while  he  is  wondering  what  he  shall 

do, 

Since  each  suggests  opposite  topics  for 
song, 

They  all  shout  together  you're  right/ 
and  you  We  wrong  ! 

"  Nature  fits  all  her  children  with 

something  t<5  do, 
He  who  would  write  and  can't  write,  can 

surely  review, 
Can  set  up  a  small  booth  as  critic  and  sell 

us  his 

Petty  conceit  and  his  pettier  jealousies ; 
Thus  a  lawyer's  apprentice,  just  out  of 
his  teens, 

Will  do  for  the  Jeffrey  of  six  maga- 
zines ; 

Having  read  Johnson's  lives  of  the  poets 
half  through, 

There 's  nothing  on  earth  he 's  not  com- 
petent to ; 

He  reviews  with  as  much  nonchalance  as 
he  whistles,  — 

He  goes  through  a  book  and  just  picks 
out  the  thistles  ; 

It  matters  not  whether  he  blame  or  com- 
mend, 

If  he 's  bad  as  a  foe,  he 's  far  worse  as  a 
friend : 

Let  an  author  but  write  what 's  above  his 

poor  scope, 
He  goes  to  work  gravely  and  twists  up  a 

rope, 

And,  inviting  the  world  to  see  punish- 
ment done, 

Hangs  himself  up  to  bleach  in  the  wind 
and  the  sun  ; 

'T  is  delightful  to  see,  when  a  man  comes 
along 

Who  has  anything  in  him  peculiar  and 
strong, 

Every  cockboat  that  swims  clear  its  fierce 

(pop)  gundeck  at  him, 
And  make  as  he  passes  its  ludicrous  Peck 

at  him  —  " 

Here  Miranda  came  up  and  began, 
"  As  to  that —  " 
Apollo  at  once  seized  his  gloves,  cane, 
and  hat, 

And,  seeing  the  place  getting  rapidly 
cleared, 

I,  too,  snatched  my  notes  and  forthwith 
disappeared. 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


NOTICES  OF  AN  INDEPENDENT  PRESS. 


[I  have  observed,  reader  (bene-  or  male- 
volent, as  it  may  happen),  that  it  is  cus- 
tomary to  append  to  the  second  editions  of 
books,  and  to  the  second  works  of  authors, 
short  sentences  commendatory  of  the  first, 
under  the  title  of  Notices  of  the  Press. 
These,  I  have  been  given  to  understand, 
are  procurable  at  certain  established  rates, 
payment  being  made  either  in  money  or 
advertising  patronage  by  the  publisher,  or 
by  an  adequate  outlay  of  servility  on  the 
part  of  the  author.  Considering  these 
things  with  myself,  and  also  that  such 
notices  are  neither  intended,  nor  generally 
believed,  to  convey  any  real  opinions,  be- 
ing a  purely  ceremonial  accompaniment  of 
literature,  and  resembling  certificates  to  the 
virtues  of  various  morbiferal  panaceas,  I 
conceived  that  it  would  be  not  only  more 
economical  to  prepare  a  sufficient  number 
of  such  myself,  but  also  more  immediately 
subservient  to  the  end  in  view  to  prefix 
them  to  this  our  primary  edition  rather 
than  await  the  contingency  of  a  second, 
when  they  would  seem  to  be  of  small  util- 
ity. To  delay  attaching  the  bobs  until  the 
second  attempt  at  flying  the  kite  would 
indicate  but  a  slender  experience  in  that 
useful  art.  Neither  has  it  escaped  my 
notice,  nor  failed  to  afford  me  matter  of 
reflection,  that,  when  a  circus  or  a  caravan 
is  about  to  visit  Jaalam,  the  initial  step 
is  to  send  forward  large  and  highly  orna- 
mented bills  of  performance  to  be  hung  in 
the  bar-room  and  the  post-office.  These 
having  been  sufficiently  gazed  at,  and  be- 
ginning to  lose  their  attractiveness  except 
for  the  flies,  and,  truly,  the  boys  also  (in 
whom  I  find  it  impossible  to  repress,  even 
during  school-hours,  certain  oral  and  tele- 
graphic communications  concerning  the 
expected  show),  upon  some  fine  morning 
the  band  enters  in  a  gayly  painted  wagon, 
or  triumphal  chariot,  and  with  noisy  ad- 
vertisement, by  means  of  brass,  wood,  and 
sheepskin,  makes  the  circuit  of  our  startled 
village  streets.  Then,  as  the  exciting 
sounds  draw  nearer  and  nearer,  do  I  de- 


siderate those  eyes  of  Aristarchus,  "  whose 
looks  were  as  a  breeching  to  a  boy." 
Then  do  I  perceive,  with  vain  regret 
of  wasted  opportunities,  the  advantage 
of  a  pancratic  or  pantechnic  education, 
since  he  is  most  reverenced  by  my  little 
subjects  who  can  throw  the  cleanest  sum- 
merset or  walk  most  securely  upon  the 
revolving  cask.  The  story  of  the  Pied 
Piper  becomes  for  the  first  time  credible 
to  me  (albeit  confirmed  by  the  Hameliners 
dating  their  legal  instruments  from  the 
period  of  his  exit),  as  I  behold  how  those 
strains,  without  pretence  of  magical  po- 
tency, bewitch  the  pupillary  legs,  nor 
leave  to  the  pedagogic  an  entire  self-con- 
trol. For  these  reasons,  lest  my  kingly 
prerogative  should  suffer  diminution,  I 
prorogue  my  restless  commons,  whom  I 
follow  into  the  street,  chiefly  lest  some 
mischief  may  chance  befall  them.  After 
the  manner  of  such  a  band,  I  send  forward 
the  following  notices  of  domestic  manufac- 
ture, to  make  brazen  proclamation,  not 
unconscious  of  the  advantage  which  will 
accrue,  if  our  little  craft,  cymbula  sutilis, 
shall  seem  to  leave  port  with  a  clipping 
breeze,  and  to  carry,  in  nautical  phrase,  a 
bone  in  her  mouth.  Nevertheless,  I  have 
chosen,  as  being  more  equitable,  to  pre- 
pare some  also  sufficiently  objurgatory, 
that  readers  of  every  taste  may  find  a  dish 
to  their  palate.  I  have  modelled  them 
upon  actually  existing  specimens,  pre- 
served in  my  own  cabinet  of  natural  curios- 
ities. One,  in  particular,  I  had  copi  id  with 
tolerable  exactness  from  a  notice  of  one 
of  my  own  discourses,  which,  from  its  su- 
perior tone  and  appearance  of  vast  experi- 
ence, I  concluded  to  have  been  written  by 
a  man  at  least  three  hundred  years  of  age, 
though  I  recollected  no  existing  instance 
of  such  antediluvian  longevity.  Never- 
theless, I  afterwards  discovered  the  author 
to  be  a  young  gentleman  preparing  for  the 
ministry  under  the  direction  of  one  of  my 
brethren  in  a  neighboring  town,  and  whom 
I  had  once  instinctively  corrected  in  a 


154 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


Latin  quantity.  But  this  I  have  been 
forced  to  omit,  from  its  too  great  length. 
—  H.  W.] 


From  the  Universal  Littery  Universe. 
Full  of  passages  which  rivet  the  attention  of 
the  reader  Under  a  rustic  garb,  senti- 
ments are  conveyed  which  should  be  committed 
to  the  memory  and  engraven  on  the  heart  of 
every  moral  and  social  being  We  con- 
sider this  a  unique  performance  We 

hope  to  see  it  soon  introduced  into  our  common 

schools  Mr.  Wilbur  has  performed  his 

duties  as  editor  with  excellent  taste  and  judg- 
ment This  is  a  vein  which  we  hope  to 

see  successfully  prosecuted  ....  We  hail  the 
appearance  of  this  work  as  a  long  stride  toward 
the  formation  of  a  purely  aboriginal,  indige- 
nous, native,  and  American  literature.  We  re- 
joice to  meet  with  an  author  national  enough 
to  break  away  from  the  slavish  deference,  too 
common  among  us,  to  English  grammar  and 

orthography  Where  all  is  so  good,  we 

are  at  a  loss  how  to  make  extracts  On 

the  whole,  we  may  call  it  a  volume  which  no 
library,  pretending  to  entire  completeness, 
should  fail  to  place  upon  its  shelves. 


From  the  Higgiribottomopolis  Snapping-turtle. 

A  collection  of  the  merest  balderdash  and 
doggerel  that  it  was  ever  our  bad  fortune  to 
lay  eyes  on.  The  author  is  a  vulgar  buffoon, 
and  the  editor  a  talkative,  tedious  old  fool. 
We  use  strong  language,  but  should  any  of  our 
readers  peruse  the  book,  (from  which  calamity 
Heaven  preserve  them  !)  they  will  find  reasons 
for  it  thick  as  the  leaves  of  Vallumbrozer,  or, 
to  use  a  still  more  expressive  comparison,  as 
the  combined  heads  of  author  and  editor.  The 

work  is  wretchedly  got  up  We  should 

like  to  know  how  much  British  gold  was  pock- 
eted by  this  libeller  of  our  country  and  her 
purest  patriots. 


From  the  Old/ogrumville  Mentor. 

We  have  not  had  time  to  do  more  than  glance 
through  this  handsomely  printed  volume,  but 
the  name  of  its  respectable  editor,  the  Rev.  Mr. 
Wilbur,  of  Jaalam,  will  afford  a  sufficient  guar- 
anty for  the  worth  of  its  contents  The 

paper  is  white,  the  type  clear,  and  the  volume 

of  a  convenient  and  attractive  size  In 

reading  this  elegantly  executed  work,  it  has 
seemed  to  us  that  a  passage  or  two  might  have 
been  retrenched  with  advantage,  and  that  the 
general  style  of  diction  was  susceptible  of  a 

higher  polish  On  the  whole,  we  may 

safely  leave  the  ungrateful  task  of  criticism  to 
the  reader.  We  will  barely  suggest,  that  in 
volumes  intended,  as  this  is,  for  the  illustration 
of  a  provincial  dialect  and  turns  of  expression, 
a  dash  of  humor  or  satire  might  be  thrown  in 

with  advantage  The  work  is  admirably 

got  up  This  work  will  form  an  appro- 
priate ornament  to  the  centre-table.  It  is 
beautifully  printed,  on  paper  of  an  excellent 
quality. 


From  the  Dekay  Bulwark. 

We  should  be  wanting  in  our  duty  as  the 
conductor  of  that  tremendous  engine,  a  public 
press,  as  an  American,  and  as  a  man,  did  we 
allow  such  an  opportunity  as  is  presented  to  us 
by  "The  Biglow  Papers"  to  pass  by  without 
entering  our  earnest  protest  against  such  at- 
tempts (now,  alas  !  too  common)  at  demoraliz- 
ing the  public  sentiment.  Under  a  wretched 
mask  of  stupid  drollery,  slavery,  war,  the  so- 
cial glass,  and,  in  short,  all  the  valuable  and 
time-honored  institutions  justly  dear  to  our 
common  humanity  and  especially  to  republi- 
cans, are  made  the  butt  of  coarse  and  senseless 
ribaldry  by  this  low-minded  scribbler.  It  is 
time  that  the  respectable  and  religious  portion 
of  our  community  should  be  aroused  to  the 
alarming  inroads  of  foreign  Jacobinism,  sans- 
culottism,  and  infidelity.  It  is  a  fearful  proof 
of  the  wide-spread  nature  of  this  contagion, 
that  these  secret  stabs  at  religion  and  virtue 
are  given  from  under  the  cloak  (credite,  posteri  !) 
of  a  clergyman.  It  is  a  mournful  spectacle  in- 
deed to  the  patriot  and  Christian  to  see  liber- 
ality and  new  ideas  (falsely  so  called,  —  they 
are  as  old  as  Eden)  invading  the  sacred  pre- 
cincts of  the  pulpit  On  the  whole,  we 

consider  this  volume  as  one  of  the  first  shock- 
ing results  wdiich  we  predicted  would  spring 
out  of  the  late  French  "  Revolution  "  (!). 


From  the  Bungtown  Copper  and  Comprehensive 
Tocsin  (a  try-weakly  family  journal). 

Altogether  an  admirable  work  Full 

of  humor,  boisterous,  but  delicate, — of  wit 
withering  and  scorching,  yet  combined  with  a 
pathos  cool  as  morning  dew, — of  satire  pon- 
derous as  the  mace  of  Richard,  yet  keen  as  the 

scymitar  of  Saladin  A  work  full  of 

"  mountain-mirth,"  mischievous  as  Puck,  and 

lightsome  as  Ariel  We  know  not  whether 

to  admire  most  the  genial,  fresh,  and  discursive 
concinnity  of  the  author,  or  his  playful  fancy, 
weird  imagination,  and  compass  of  style,  at 

once  both  objective  and  subjective  We 

might  indulge  in  some  criticisms,  but,  were  the 
author  other  than  he  is,  he  would  be  a  different 
being.  As  it  is,  he  has  a  wonderful  pose,  which 
flits  from  flower  to  flower,  and  bears  the  reader 
irresistibly  along  on  its  eagle  pinions  (like  Gany- 
mede) to  the  "highest  heaven  of  invention." 

....  We  love  a  book  so  purely  objective  

Many  of  his  pictures  of  natural  scenery  have  an 
extraordinary  subjective  clearness  and  fidelity. 
....  In  fine,  we  consider  this  as  one  of  the 
most  extraordinary  volumes  of  this  or  any  age. 
We  know  of  no  English  author  who  could  have 
written  it.  It  is  a  work  to  which  the  proud 
genius  of  our  country,  standing  with  one  foot 
on  the  Aroostook  and  the  other  on  the  Rio 
Grande,  and  holding  up  the  star-spangled  ban- 
ner amid  the  wreck  of  matter  and  the  crush  of 
worlds,  may  point  with  bewildering  scorn  of  the 

punier  efforts  of  enslaved  Europe  We 

hope  soon  to  encounter  our  author  among  those 
higher  walks  of  literature  in  which  he  is  evi- 
dently capable  of  achieving  enduring  fame. 
Already  we  should  be  inclined  to  assign  him  a 
high  position  in  the  bright  galaxy  of  our  Amer- 
ican bards. 


NOTICES  OF  AN  INDEPENDENT  PRESS. 


155 


From  the  Saltriver  Pilot  and  Flag  of  Freedom. 

A  volume  in  bad  grammar  and  worse  taste. 
....  While  the  pieces  here  collected  were  con- 
fined to  their  appropriate  sphere  in  the  corners 
of  obscure  newspapers,  we  considered  them 
wholly  beneath  contempt,  but,  as  the  author 
has  chosen  to  come  forward  in  this  public 
manner,  he  must  expect  the  lash  he  so  richly 

merits  Contemptible  slanders  

Vilest  Billingsgate  Has  raked  all  the 

gutters  of  our  language  The  most  pure, 

upright,  and  consistent  politicians  not  safe 

from  his  malignant  venom  General  Cush- 

ing  comes  in  for  a  share  of  his  vile  calumnies. 
....  The  Reverend  Homer  Wilbur  is  a  disgrace 
to  his  cloth  


From  the  World- Harmonic- JEolian- Attachment. 

Speech  is  silver :  silence  is  golden.  No  ut- 
terance more  Orphic  than  this.  While,  there- 
fore, as  highest  author,  we  reverence  him  whose 
works  continue  heroically  unwritten,  we  have 
also  our  hopeful  word  for  those  who  with  jien 
(from  wing  of  goose  loud-cackling,  or  seraph 
God-commissioned)  record  the  thing  that  is  re- 
vealed Under  mask  of  quaintest  irony, 

we  detect  here  the  deep,  storm-tost  (nigh  ship- 
wracked)  soul,  thunder-scarred,  semi-articu- 
late, but  ever  climbing  hopefully  toward  the 
peaceful  summits  of  an  Infinite  Sorrow.  .... 
Yes,  thou  poor,  forlorn  Hosea,  with  Hebrew 
fire-flaming  soul  in  thee,  for  thee  also  this  life 
of  ours  has  not  been  without  its  aspects  of 
heavenliest  pity  and  langhingest  mirth.  Con- 
ceivable enough  !  Through  ■  coarse  Thersites- 
cloak,  we  have  revelation  of  the  heart,  wild- 
glowing,  world-clasping,  that  is  in  him.  Brave- 
ly he  grapples  with  the  life-problem  as  it  pre- 
sents itself  to  him,  uncombed,  shaggy,  careless 
of  the  "  nicer  proprieties,"  inexpert  of  "  elegant 
diction,"  yet  with  voice  audible  enough  to 
whoso  hath  ears,  up  there  on  the  gravelly  side- 
hills,  or  down  on  the  splashy,  indiarubber-like 
salt-marshes  of  native  Jaalam.  To  this  soul 
also  the  Necessity  of  Creating  somewhat  has  un- 
veiled its  awful  front.  If  not  (Edipuses  and 
Electras  and  Alcestises,  then  in  God's  name 
Birdofredum  Sawins  !  These  also  shall  get  born 
into  the  world,  and  filch  (if  so  need)  a  Zingali 
subsistence  therein,  these  lank,  omnivorous 
Yankees  of  his.  He  shall  paint  the  Seen,  since 
the  Unseen  will  not  sit  to  him.  Yet  in  him 
also  are  Nibelungen-lays,  and  Iliads,  and  Ulys- 
ses-wanderings, and  Divine  Comedies,  — if  only 
once  he  could  come  at  them  !  Therein  lies 
much,  nay  all ;  for  what  truly  is  this  which  we 
name  All,  but  that  which  we  do  not  possess? 
....  Glimpses  also  are  given  us  of  an  old 
father  Ezekiel,  not  without  paternal  pride,  as 
is  the  wont  of  such.  A  brown,  parchment- 
hided  old  man  of  the  geoponic  or  bucolic  spe- 
cies, gray-eyed,  we  fancy,  queued  perhaps,  with 
much  weather-cunning  and  plentiful  Septem- 
ber-gale memories,  bidding  fair  in  good  time 
to  become  the  Oldest  Inhabitant.  After  such 
hasty  apparition,  he  vanishes  and  is  seen  no 

more  Of  "Rev.  Homer  Wilbur,  A.  M., 

Pastor  of  the  First  Church  in  Jaalam,"  we  have 
small  care  to  speak  here.  Spare  touch  in  him 
of  his  Melesigenes  namesake,  save,  haply,  the 
—  blindness!   A  tolerably  caliginose,  nephe- 


legeretous  elderly  gentleman,  with  infinite  fac- 
ulty of  sermonizing,  muscularized  by  long  prac- 
tice, and  excellent  digestive  apparatus,  and,  for 
the  rest,  well-meaning  enough,  and  with  small 
private  illuminations  (somewhat  tallowy,  it  is 
to  be  feared)  of  his  own.  To  him,  there,  "Pastor 
of  the  First  Church  in  Jaalam,"  our  Hosea  pre- 
sents himself  as  a  quite  inexplicable  Sphinx- 
riddle.  A  rich  poverty  of  Latin  and  Greek,  — 
so  far  is  clear  enough,  even  to  eyes  peering  my- 
opic through  horn-lensed  editorial  spectacles, 
—  but  naught  farther  ?  O  purblind,  well-mean- 
ing, altogether  fuscous  Melesigenes-Wilbur, 
there  are  things  in  him  incommunicable  by 
stroke  of  birch  !  Did  it  ever  enter  that  old  be- 
wildered head  of  thine  that  there  was  the  Pos- 
sibility of  the  Infinite  in  him?  To  thee,  quite 
wingless  (and  even  featherless)  biped,  has  not 
so  much  even  as  a  dream  of  wings  ever  come  ? 
"Talented  young  parishioner"?  Among  the 
Arts  whereof  thou  art  Magister,  does  that  of 
seeing  happen  to  be  one?  Unhappy  Artium 
Magister!  Somehow  a  Nemean  lion,  fulvous, 
torrid-eyed,  dry-nursed  in  broad-howling  sand- 
wildernesses  of  a  sufficiently  rare  spirit-Libya 
(it  may  be  supposed)  has  got  whelped  among 
the  sheep.  Already  he  stands  wild-glaring,  with 
feet  clutching  the  ground  as  with  oak-roots, 
gathering  for  a  Remus-spring  over  the  walls  of 
thy  little  fold.  In  Heaven's  name,  go  not  near 
him  with  that  flybite  crook  of  thine  !  In  good 
time,  thou  painful  preacher,  thou  wilt  go  to  the 
appointed  place  of  departed  Artillery-Election 
Sermons,  Right-Hands  of  Fellowship,  and  Re- 
sults of  Councils,  gathered  to  thy  spiritual 
fathers  with  much  Latin  of  the  Epitaphial  sort ; 
thou,  too,  shalt  have  thy  reward ;  but  on  him 
the  Eumenides  have  looked,  not  Xantippes  of 
the  pit,  snake-tressed,  finger-threatening,  but 
radiantly  calm  as  on  antique  gems ;  for  him 
paws  impatient  the  winged  courser  of  the  gods, 
champing  unwelcome  bit ;  him  the  starry  deeps, 
the  empyrean  glooms,  and  far-flashing  splen- 
dors await. 


From  the  Onion  Grove  Phoenix. 

A  talented  young  townsman  of  ours,  recently 
returned  from  a  Continental  tour,  and  who  is 
already  favorably  known  to  our  readers  by  his 
sprightly  letters  from  abroad  which  have  graced 
our  columns,  called  at  our  office  yesterday.  We 
learn  from  him,  that,  having  enjoyed  the  dis- 
tinguished privilege,  while  in  Germany,  of  an 
introduction  to  the  celebrated  Von  Humbug, 
he  took  the  opportunity  to  present  that  emi- 
nent man  with  a  copy  of  the  "  Biglow  Papers." 
The  next  morning  he  received  the  following 
note,  which  he  has  kindly  furnished  us  for 
publication.  We  prefer  to  print  it  verbatim, 
knowing  that  our  readers  will  readily  forgive 
the  few  errors  into  which  the  illustrious  writer 
has  fallen,  through  ignorance  of  our  language. 

"  High-Worthy  Mister  ! 
"  I  shall  also  now  especially  happy  starve, 
because  I  have  more  or  less  a  work  of  one  those 
aboriginal  Red-Men  seen  in  which  have  I  so 
deaf  an  interest  ever  taken  full-worthy  on  the 
self  shelf  with  our  Gottsched  to  be  upset. 

"Pardon  my  in  the  English-speech  un-prac- 
ticel 

"Von  Humbug." 


156 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


He  also  sent  with  the  above  note  a  copy  of  his 
famous  work  on  "  Cosmetics,"  to  be  presented 
to  Mr.  Biglow;  but  this  was  taken  from  our 
friend,  by  the  English  custom-house  officers, 
probably  through  a  petty  national  spite.  No 
doubt,  it  has  by  this  time  found  its  way  into 
the  British  Museum.  We  trust  this  outrage 
will  be  exposed  in  all  our  American  papers. 
We  shall  do  our  best  to  bring  it  to  the  notice 
of  the  State  Department.  Our  numerous  read- 
ers will  share  in  the  pleasure  we  experience  at 
seeing  our  young  and  vigorous  national  litera- 
ture thus  encouragingly  patted  on  the  head  by 
this  venerable  and  world-renowned  German. 
We  love  to  see  these  reciprocations  of  good- 
feeling  between  the  different  branches  of  the 
great  Anglo-Saxon  race. 

[The  following  genuine  "  notice"  having 
met  my  eye,  I  gladly  insert  a  portion  of  it 
here,  the  more  especially  as  it  contains 
one  of  Mr.  Biglow's  poems  not  elsewhere 
printed.  —  H.  W.] 

From  the  Jaalam  Independent  Blunderbuss. 

....  But,  while  we  lament  to  see  our  young 
townsman  thus  mingling  in  the  heated  contests 
of  party  politics,  we  think  we  detect  in  him  the 
presence  of  talents  which,  if  properly  directed, 
might  give  an  innocent  pleasure  to  many.  As 
a  proof  that  he  is  competent  to  the  production 
of  other  kinds  of  poetry,  we  copy  for  our  read- 
ers a  short  fragment  of  a  pastoral  by  him,  the 
manuscript  of  which  was  loaned  us  by  a  friend. 
The  title  of  it  is  "The  Courtin'." 

Zekle  crep'  up,  quite  unbeknown, 

An'  peeked  in  thru  the  winder, 
An'  there  sot  Huldy  all  alone, 

'ith  no  one  nigh  to  hender. 

Agin'  the  chimbly  crooknecks  hung, 

An'  in  amongst  'em  rusted 
The  ole  queen's-arm  thet  gran'ther  Young 

Fetched  back  frum  Concord  busted. 

The  wannut  logs  shot  sparkles  out 
Towards  the  pootiest,  bless  her  1 


An'  leetle  fires  danced  all  about 
The  chiny  on  the  dresser. 

The  very  room,  coz  she  wuz  in, 
Looked  warm  frum  floor  to  ceilin', 

An'  she  looked  full  ez  rosy  agin 
Ez  th'  apples  she  wuz  peelin'. 

She  heerd  a  foot  an'  knowed  it,  tu, 

Araspin'  on  the  scraper,  — 
All  ways  to  once  her  feelins  flew 

Like  sparks  in  burnt-up  paper. 

He  kin'  o'  l'itered  on  the  mat, 

Some  doubtfle  o'  the  seekle ; 
His  heart  kep'  goin'  pitypat, 

But  hern  went  pity  Zekle. 

An'  yet  she  gin  her  cheer  a  jerk 
Ez  though  she  wished  him  furder 

An'  on  her  apples  kep'  to  work 
Ez  ef  a  wager  spurred  her. 

"You  want  to  see  my  Pa,  I  spose?" 

"  Wal,  no  ;  I  come  designin'  —  " 
"  To  see  my  Ma?   She 's  sprinklin'  clo'es 

Agin  to-morrow's  i'nin'." 

He  stood  a  spell  on  one  foot  fust 

Then  stood  a  spell  on  tother, 
An'  on  which  one  he  felt  the  wust 

He  could  n't  ha'  told  ye,  nuther. 

Sez  he,  "I 'd  better  call  agin  "  ; 

Sez  she,  u  Think  likely,  Mister"  ; 
The  last  word  pricked  him  like  a  pin, 

An' — wal,  he  up  and  kist  her. 

When  Ma  bimeby  upon  'em  slips, 

Huldy  sot  pale  ez  ashes, 
All  kind  o'  smily  round  the  lips 

An'  teary  round  the  lashes. 

Her  blood  riz  quick,  though,  like  the  tide 

Down  to  the  Bay  o'  Fundy, 
An'  all  I  know  is  they  wuz  cried 

In  meetin',  come  nex  Sunday. 


Satis  multis  sese  emptores  futuros  libri 
professis,  Georgius  Nichols,  Cantabrigien- 
sis,  opus  emittet  de  parte  gravi  sed  adhuc 
neglecta  historian  naturalis,  cum  titulo 
sequenti,  videlicet : 

Conatus  ad  Delineationem  naturalem 
nonnihil  perfectiorem  Scarabcei  Bombila- 
toris,  vulgo  dicti  Humbug,  ab  Homero 
Wilbur,  Artium  Magistro,  Societatis 
historico-naturalis  Jaalamensis  Prseside 
(Secretario,  Socioque  (eheu  !)  singulo), 
multarumque  aliarum  Soeietatum  erudi- 
tarum  (sive  ineruditarum)  tam  domesti- 
carum  quam  transmarinarum  Socio  —  for- 
sitan  futuro. 


PROEMIUM. 
Lectori  Benevolo  S. 

Toga  scholastica  nondum  deposita,  quum 
systemata  varia  entomologica,  a  viris  ejus 
sciential  cultoribus  studiosissimis  summa 
diligentia  sedificata,  penitus  indagassem, 
non  fuit  quin  luctuose  omnibus  in  iis, 
quam  vis  aliter  laude  dignissimis,  hiatum 
magni  momenti  perciperem.  Tunc,  nescio 
quo  motu  superiore  impulsus,  aut  qua 
captus  dulcedine  operis,  ad  eum  implen- 
dum  (Curtius  alter)  me  solemniter  devovi. 
Nec  ab  isto  labore,  fiatjuofuos  imposito,  ab- 
stinui  antequam  tractatulum  sufficienter 
inconcinnum  lingua  vernacula  perfeceram. 
Inde,  juveniliter  tumefactus,  et  barathro 


NOTICES  OF  AN  INDEPENDENT  PRESS. 


157 


ineptise  nw  0ij8Aio7ra>Awi>  (necnon  "Publici 
Legentis  ")  nusquam  explorato,  me  eom- 
posuisse  quod  quasi  placentas  praefervidas 
(ut  sic  dicam)  homines  ingurgitarent  cre- 
didi.  Sed,  quum  huic  et  alio  bibliopolae 
MSS.  mea  submisissem  et  nihil  solidius 
resppnsione  valde  negativa  in  Musaeum 
meum  retulissem,  horror  ingens  atque 
misericordia,  ob  crassitudinem  Lamber- 
tianam  in  cerebris  homunculorum  istius 
muneris  coelesti  quadam  ira  infixam,  me 
invasere.  Extemplo  mei  solius  impensis 
librum  edere  decrevi,  nihil  onmino  du- 
bitans  quin  "  Mundus  Scientificus "  (ut 
aiunt)  crumenam  meam  ampliter  repleret. 
Nullam,  attamen,  ex  agro  illo  meo  parvulo 
segetem  demessui,  prseter  gaudium  vacuum 
bene  de  Eepublica  merendi.  Iste  panis 
meus  pretiosus  super  aquas  literarias  faecu- 
lentas  praefidenter  jactus,  quasi  Harpyi- 
arum  quarundam  (scilicet  bibliopolarum 
istorum  facinorosorum  supradictorum)  tac- 
tu  rancidus,  intra  perpaucos  dies  mihi 
domum  rediit.  Et,  quum  ipse  tali  victu 
ali  non  tolerarem,  primum  in  mentem 
venit  pistori  (typographo  nempe)  nihilo- 
minus  solvendum  esse.  Animum  non  id- 
circo  demisi,  imo  aeque  ac  pueri  naviculas 
suas  penes  se  lino  retinent  (eo  ut  e  recto 
cursu  delapsas  ad  ripam  retrahant),  sic 
ego  Argo  meam  chartaceam  fluctibus  la- 
borantem  a  quaesitu  velleris  aurei,  ipse 
potius  tonsus  pelleque  exutus,  mente  so- 
lida  revocavi.  Metaphoram  ut  mutem, 
boomarangam  meam  a  scopo  aberrantem 
retraxi,  dum  majore  vi,  occasione  minis- 
trante,  adversus  Fortuuam  ihtorquerem. 
Ast  mihi,  talia  volventi,  et,  sicut  Saturnus 
ille  7rai6o/36po5,  liberos  intellectus  mei  de- 
pascere  fidenti,  casus  miserandus,  nec  an- 
tea  inauditus,  supervenit.  Nam,  ut  ferunt 
Scythas  pietatis  causa  et  parsimonise,  pa- 
rentes  suos  mortuos  devorasse,  sic  Alius  hie 
meus  primogenitus,  Scythis  ipsis  minus 
mansuetus,  patrem  vivum  totum  et  cal- 
citrantem  exsorbere  enixus  est.  Nec  ta- 
men  hac  de  causa  sobolem  meam  esurien- 
tem  exheredavi.  Sed  famem  istam  pro 
valido  testimonio  virilitatis  roborisque 
potius  habui,  cibumque  ad  earn  satiandam, 
salva  paterna  mea  carne,  petii.  Et  quia 
bilem  illam  scaturientem  ad  aes  etiam  con- 
coquendum  idoneam  esse  estimabam,  unde 
aes  alienum,  ut  minoris  pretii,  haberem, 
circumspexi.  Rebus  ita  se  habentibus, 
ab  avunculo  meo  Johanne  Doolittle,  Ar- 
migero,  impetravi  ut  pecunias  necessarias 
suppeditaret,  ne  opus  esset  mihi  universi- 
tatem  relinquendi  antequam  ad  gradum 
primum  in  artibus  pervenissem.  Tunc  ego, 
salvum  facere  patronum  meum  munificum 
maxime  cupiens,  omnes  libros  primae  edi- 
tionis  operis  mei  non  venditos  una  cum 


privilegio  in  omne  aevum  ejusdem  impri- 
mendi  et  edendi  avunculo  meo  dicto  pig- 
neravi.  Ex  illo  die,  atro  lapide  notando, 
curae  vociferantes  famiiise  singulis  annis 
crescentis  eo  usque  insultabant  ut  nun- 
quam  tarn  carum  pignus  e  vinculis  istis 
aheneis  solvere  possem. 

Avunculo  vero  nuper  mortuo,  quum 
inter  alios  consanguineos  testamenti  ejus 
lectionem  audiendi  causa  advenissem,  erec- 
tis  auribus  verba  talia  sequentia  accepi : 
—  "  Quoniam  persuasum  habeo  meum  di- 
lectum  nepotem  Homerum,  longa  et  inti- 
ma  rerum  angustarum  domi  experientia, 
aptissimum  esse  qui  divitias  tueatnr,  bene- 
ficenterque  ac  prudenter  iis  divinis  credi- 
tis  utatur,  —  ergo,  motus  hisce  cogitatio- 
nibus,  exque  am  ore  meo  in  ilium  magno, 
do,  legoque  nepoti  caro  meo  supranomina- 
to  omnes  singularesque  istas  possessiones 
nec  ponderabiles  nec  computabiles  meas 
quae  sequuntur,  scilicet  :  quingentos  libros 
quos  mihi  pigneravit  dictus  Homerus,  anno 
lucis  1792,  cum  privilegio  edendi  et  repe- 
tendi  opus  istud  '  scientificum '  (quod  di- 
cunt)  suum,  si  sic  elegerit.  Tamen  D.  0. 
M.  precor  oculos  Homeri  nepotis  mei  ita 
aperiat  eumque  moveat,  ut  libros  istos  in 
bibliotheca  unius  e  plurimis  castellis  suis 
Hispaniensibus  tuto  abscondat." 

His  verbis  (vix  credibilibus)  auditis, 
cor  meum  in  pectore  exsultavit.  Deinde, 
quoniam  tractatus  Anglice  scriptus  spem 
auctoris  fefellerat,  quippe  quum  studium 
Historiae  Naturalis  in  Republica  nostra 
inter  factionis  strepitum  languescat,  La- 
tine  versum  edere  statui,  et  eo  potius  quia 
nescio  quomodo  disciplina  academica  et 
duo  diplomata  proficiant,  nisi  quod  peritos 
linguarum  omnino  mortuarum  (et  dam- 
nandarum,  ut  dicebat  iste  wavovpyos  Guli- 
elmus  Cobbett)  nos  faciant. 

Et  mihi  adhuc  superstes  est  tota  ilia 
editio  prima,  quam  quasi  crepitaculum 
per  quod  dentes  caninos  dentibam  retineo. 


OPERIS  SPECIMEN. 

(Ad  exemplum  Johannis  Physiophili  speciminis 
Monachologice.) 

12.  S.  B.  Militaris,  Wilbur.  Carnifex,  Ja- 
blonsk.    Profanvs,  Desfont. 

[Male  hancce  speciem  Cyclopem  Fabricius  vo- 
cat,  ut  qui  singulo  oculo  ad  quod  sui  interest 
distinguitur.  Melius  vero  Isaacus  Outis  nul- 
lum inter  S.  milit.  S.  que  Belzebul  (Fabric. 
152)  discrimen  esse  defendit] 

Habitat  civitat.  Americ.  austral. 

Aureis  lineis  splendidus ;  plerumque  tamen 
sordidus,  utpote  lanienas  valde  frequentans, 
foetore  sanguinis  allectus.  Am  at  quoque  insu- 
per  septa  apricari,  neque  inde,  nisi  maxima 
conatione  detruditur.  Candidatus  ergo  popu- 
lariter  vocatus.    Caput  jcristam  quasi  penna- 


158 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


rum  ostendit.    Pro  cibo  vaccam  publicara  cal-  i 
lide  mulget  ;  abdomen  enorme  ;  faeultas  suctus 
haud  facile  estimanda.  Otiosus,  fatuus  ;  ferox 
nihilominus,    semperque   dimicaie  paratus. 
Tortuose  repit 

Capite  saepe  maxima  cum  cura  dissecto,  ne 
illud  rudimeutum  etiam  cerebri  commune  om-  j 
nibus  prope  insectis  detegere  poteram. 

UnamdehocS.  milit.  rein  singulareni  notavi; 
nam  S.  Guineens.  (Fabric.  143)  servos  facit,  et 
idcirco  a  multis  summa  in  reverentia  habitus, 
quasi  scintillas  rationis  peene  liumanse  demon- 
s  trans. 


24.  S.  B.  Criticv.s,  Wilbur.  Zoilus,  Fabric. 
Pygnucus,  Carlse>\ 

[Stultissime  Johannes  StryxcumS.  punctato 
(Fabric.  64  - 109)  confundit.  Specimina  quam- 
plurima  scrutationi  microscopic*  subjeci,  nun- 
quam  tamen  unum  ulla  indicia  puncti  cujusvis 
prorsus  ostendentem  invent] 

Praecipue  formidolosus,  insectatusque,  in 
proxima  rima  anonyma  sese  abscondit.  v:e,  ice, 
creberrime  stridens.    Ineptus,  segnipes. 

Habitat  ubique  gentium  ;  in  sicco  ;  nidum 
suum  terebratione  indefessa  aedificans.  Cibus. 
Libros  depascit  ;  siccos  pr&cipue. 


ME  LIB  (E  US-HIPPONAX. 


THE 

i3  t  g  1 0 1»  J3  ap  tx  0, 

EDITED, 

WITH  AN  INTRODUCTION,  NOTES,  GLOSSARY,  AND 
COPIOUS  INDEX, 

BY 

HOMER  WILBUR,  A.  M., 

PASTOR  OF  THE  FIRST  CHURCH  IN  JAALAM,  AND  (PROSPECTIVE)  MEMBER  OF  MANY 
LITERARY,    LEARNED,  AND  SCIENTIFIC  SOCIETIES, 

{for  which  see  page  173.) 

The  ploughman's  whistle,  or  the  trivial  flute, 
Finds  more  respect  than  great  Apollo's  lute. 

Quarks' s  Emblems,  b.  ii.  e.  8. 


Margaritas,  munde  porcine,  calcasti :  en,  siliquas  accipe. 

Jac  Car.  Fil.  ad  Pub.  Leg.  §  1. 


NOTE  TO  TITLE-PAGE. 


It  will  not  have  escaped  the  attentive 
eye,  that  I  have,  on  the  title-page,  omitted 
those  honorary  appendages  to  the  editorial 
name  which  not  only  add  greatly  to  the 
value  of  every  book,  but  whet  and  exacer- 
bate the  appetite  of  the  reader.  For  not 
only  does  he  surmise  that  an  honorary 
membership  of  literary  and  scientific  so- 
cieties implies  a  certain  amount  of  neces- 
sary distinction  on  the  part  of  the  recipient 
of  such  decorations,  but  he  is  willing  to 
trust  himself  more  entirely  to  an  author 
who  writes  under  the  fearful  responsibility 
of  involving  the  reputation  of  such  bodies 
as  the  S.  Archceol.  Dahom.  or  the  Acad. 
Lit.  et  Scient.  Kamtschat.  I  cannot  but* 
think  that  the  early  editions  of  Shake- 
speare and  Milton  would  have  met  with 
more  rapid  and  general  acceptance,  but  for 
the  barrenness  of  their  respective  title- 
pages  ;  and  I  believe  that,  even  now,  a 
publisher  of  the  works  of  either  of  those 
justly  distinguished  men  would  find  his 
account  in  procuring  their  admission  to 
the  membership  of  learned  bodies  on  the 
Continent,  —  a  proceeding  no  whit  more 
incongruous  than  the  reversal  of  the  judg- 
ment against  Socrates,  when  he  was  al- 
ready more  than  twenty  centuries  beyond 
the  reach  of  antidotes,  and  when  his  mem- 
ory had  acquired  a  deserved  respectability. 
I  conceive  that  it  was  a  feeling  of  the  im- 
portance of  this  precaution  which  induced 
Mr.  Locke  to  style  himself  "  Gent."  on 
the  title-page  of  his  Essay,  as  who  should 
say  to  his  readers  that  they  could  receive 
his  metaphysics  on  the  honor  of  a  gentle- 
man. 

Nevertheless,  finding  that,  without  de- 
scending to  a  smaller  size  of  type  than 
would  have  been  compatible  with  the  dig- 
nity of  the  several  societies  to  be  named, 
I  could  not  compress  my  intended  list 
within  the  limits  of  a  single  page,  and 
thinking,  moreover,  that  the  act  would 
carry  with  it  an  air  of  decorous  modesty, 
I  have  chosen  to  take  the  reader  aside,  as 
it  were,  into  my  private  closet,  and  there 


not  only  exhibit  to  him  the  diplomas 
which  I  already  possess,  but  also  to  fur- 
nish him  with  a  prophetic  vision  of  those 
which  I  may,  without  undue  presumption, 
hope  for,  as  not  beyond  the  reach  of  hu- 
man ambition  and  attainment.  And  I  am 
the  rather  induced  to  this  from  the  fact 
that  my  name  has  been  unaccountably 
dropped  from  the  last  triennial  catalogue 
of  our  beloved  Alma  Mater.  Wh ether 
this  is  to  be  attributed  to  the  difficulty  of 
Latinizing  any  of  those  honorary  adjuncts 
(with  a  complete  list  of  which  I  took  care 
to  furnish  the  proper  persons  nearly  a 
year  beforehand),  or  whether  it  had  its 
origin  in  any  more  culpable  motives,  I 
forbear  to  consider  in  this  place,  the  mat- 
ter being  in  course  of  painful  investiga- 
tion. But,  however  this  may  be,  I  felt 
the  omission  the  more  keenly,  as  I  had,  in 
expectation  of  the  new  catalogue,  enriched 
the  library  of  the  Jaalam  Athenaeum  with 
the  old  one  then  in  my  possession,  by 
which  means  it  has  come  about  that  my 
children  will  be  deprived  of  a  never-weary- 
ing winter-evening's  amusement  in  looking 
out  the  name  of  their  parent  in  that  dis- 
tinguished roll.  Those  harmless  inno- 
cents had  at  least  committed  no  but 

I  forbear,  having  intrusted  my  reflections 
and  animadversions  on  this  painful  topic 
to  the  safe-keeping  of  my  private  diary, 
intended  for  posthumous  publication.  I 
state  this  fact  here,  in  order  that  certain 
nameless  individuals,  who  are,  perhaps, 
overmuch  congratulating  themselves  upon 
my  silence,  may  know  that  a  rod  is  in 
pickle  which  the  vigorous  hand  of  a  justly 
incensed  posterity  will  apply  to  their 
memories. 

The  careful  reader  will  note  that,  in 
the  list  which  I  have  prepared,  I  have 
included  the  names  of  several  Cisatlantic 
societies  to  which  a  place  is  not  commonly 
assigned  in  processions  of  this  nature.  I 
have  ventured  to  do  this,  not  only  to  en- 
courage native  ambition  and  genius,  but 
also  because  I  have  never  been  able  to 


NOTE  TO  TITLE-PAGE. 


161 


perceive  in  what  way  distance  (unless  we 
suppose  them  at  the  end  of  a  lever)  could 
increase  the  weight  of  learned  bodies.  As 
far  as  I  have  been  able  to  extend  my  re- 
searches among  such  stuffed  specimens  as 
occasionally  reach  America,  I  have  dis- 
covered no  generic  difference  between  the 
antipodal  Fogrum  Japonicum  and  the  F. 
Americanum  sufficiently  common  in  our 
own  immediate  neighborhood.  Yet,  with 
a  becoming  deference  to  the  popular  be- 
lief that  distinctions  of  this  sort  are  en- 
hanced in  value  by  every  additional  mile 
they  travel,  I  have  intermixed  the  names 
of  some  tolerably  distant  literary  and  oth- 
er associations  with  the  rest. 

I  add  here,  also,  an  advertisement, 
which,  that  it  may  be  the  more  readily 
understood  by  those  persons  especially 
interested  therein,  I  have  written  in  that 
curtailed  and  otherwise  maltreated  canine 
Latin,  to  the  writing  and  reading  of  which 
they  are  accustomed. 

Omnib.  per  tot.  Orb.  Terrar. 
Catalog.  Academ.  Edd. 

Minim,  gent,  diplom.  ab  inclytiss.  acad. 
vest,  orans,  vir.  honorand.  operosiss.,  at 
sol.  ut  sciat.  quant,  glor.  nom.  meum 
(dipl.  fort,  concess.)  catal.  vest.  temp, 
futur.  affer.,  ill.  subjec,  addit.  omnib. 
titul.  honorar.  qu.  adh.  non  tant.  opt. 
quam  probab.  put. 

***  Litt.  Uncial,  distinx.  ut  Frees.  S. 
Hist.  Nat.  Jaal. 


HOMER  US  WILBUR,  Mr.,  Episc. 
Jaalam,  S.  T.  D.  1850,  et  Yal.  1849,  et 
Neo-Cses.  et  Brun.  et  Gulielm.  1852,  et 
Gul.  et  Mar.  et  Bowd.  et  Georgiop.  et 
Viridimont.  et  Columb.  Nov.  Ebor.  1853, 
et  Amherst,  et  Watervill.  et  S.  Jarlath. 
Hib.  et  S.  Mar.  et  S.  Joseph,  et  S.  And. 
Scot.  1854,  et  Nashvill.  et  Dart,  et  Dickins. 
et  Concord,  et  Wash,  et  Columbian,  et 
Chariest,  et  Jeff,  et  Dubl.  et  Oxon.  et 
Cantab,  et  Cset.  1855,  P.  U.  N.  C.  H.  et 
J.  U.  D.  Gott.  et  Osnab.  et  Heidelb.  1860, 
et  Acad.  Bore  us.  Berolin.  Soc,  et  SS. 
RR.  Lugd.  Bat.  et  Patav.  et  Lond.  et 
Edinb.  et  Ins.  Feejee.  et  Null.  Terr,  et 
Pekin.  Soc.  Hon.  et  S.  H.  S.  et  S.  P.  A. 
et  A.  A.  S.  et  S.  Humb.  Univ.  et  S.  Omn. 
Rer.  Quarund.  q.  Aliar.  Promov.  Passa- 
maquod.  et  H.  P.  C.  et  I.  O.  H.  et  A.  A. 

et  II.  K.  P.  et  B.  K .  et  Peucin.  et 
Erosoph.  et  Philadelph.  et  Frat.  in  Unit, 
et  2-  T.  et  S.  Archseolog.  Athen.  et  Acad. 
Scient.  et  Lit.  Panorm.  et  SS.  R.  H. 
Matrit.  et  Beeloochist.  et  Caffrar.  et  Caribb. 
et  M.  S.  Reg.  Paris,  et  S.  Am.  Antiserv. 
Soc.  Hon.  et  P.  D.  Gott.  et  LL.  D.  1852, 
et  D.  C.  L.  et  Mus.  Doc.  Oxon.  1860,  et 
M.  M.  S.  S.  et  M.  D.  1854,  et  Med.  Fac. 
Univ.  Harv.  Soc.  et  S.  pro  Convers.  Polly  - 
wog.  Soc.  Hon.  et  Higgl.  Piggl.  et  LL.  B. 
1853,  et  S.  pro  Christianiz.  Moschet.  Soc. 
et  SS.  Ante-Diluv.  ubiq.  Gent.  Soc.  Hon. 
et  Civit.  Cleric.  Jaalam  et  S.  pro  Diffus. 
General.  Tenebr.  Secret.  Corr. 


INTROD 


UCTION. 


When,  more  than  three  years  ago,  my 
talented  young  parishioner,  Mr.  Biglow, 
came  to  me  and  submitted  to  my  animad- 
versions the  first  of  his  poems  which  he 
intended  to  commit  to  the  more  hazardous 
trial  of  a  city  newspaper,  it  never  so  much 
as  entered  my  imagination  to  conceive  that 
his  productions  would  ever  be  gathered 
into  a  fair  volume,  and  ushered  into  the 
august  presence  of  the  reading  public  by 
myself.  So  little  are  we  short-sighted 
mortals  able  to  predict  the  event !  I  con- 
fess that  there  is  to  me  a  quite  new  satis- 
faction in  being  associated  (though  only 
as  sleeping  partner)  in  a  book  which  can 
stand  by  itself  in  an  independent  unity  on 
the  shelves  of  libraries.  For  there  is  always 
this  drawback  from  the  pleasure  of  print- 
ing a  sermon,  that,  whereas  the  queasy 
stomach  of  this  generation  will  not  bear 
a  discourse  long  enough  to  make  a  sepa- 
rate volume,  those  religious  and  godly- 
minded  children  (those  Samuels,  if  I  may 
call  them  so)  of  the  brain  must  at  first  lie 
buried  in  an  undistinguished  heap,  and 
then  get  such  resurrection  as  is  vouchsafed 
to  them,  mummy-wrapped  with  a  score 
of  others  in  a  cheap  binding,  with  no  other 
mark  of  distinction  than  the  word  "  Mis- 
cellaneous "  printed  upon  the  back.  Far 
be  it  from  me  to  claim  any  credit  for  the 
quite  unexpected  popularity  which  I  am 
pleased  to  find  these  bucolic  strains  have 
attained  unto.  If  I  know  myself,  I  am 
measurably  free  from  the  itch  of  vanity  ; 
yet  I  may  be  allowed  to  say  that  I  was 
not  backward  to  recognize  in  them  a  cer- 
tain wild,  puckery,  acidulous  (sometimes 
even  verging  toward  that  point  which,  in 
our  rustic  phrase,  is  termed  shut-eye) 
flavor,  not  wholly  unpleasing,  nor  un- 
wholesome, to  palates  cloyed  with  the 
sugariness  of  tamed  and  cultivated  fruit. 
It  may  be,  also,  that  some  touches  of  my 
own,  here  and  there,  may  have  led  to  their 
wider  acceptance,  albeit  solely  from  my 
larger  experience  of  literature  and  author- 
ship.* 

*  The  reader  curious  in  such  matters  may 
refer  (if  he  can  find  them)  to  "A  sermon 
preached  on  the  Anniversary  of  the  Dark 
Day,"  "An  Artillery  Election  Sermon,"  "A 


I  was,  at  first,  inclined  to  discourage  Mr. 
Biglow's  attempts,  as  knowing  that  the 
desire  to  poetize  is  one  of  the  diseases 
naturally  incident  to  adolescence,  which, 
if  the  fitting  remedies  be  not  at  once  and 
with  a  bold  hand  applied,  may  become 
chronic,  and  render  one,  who  might  else 
have  become  in  due  time  an  ornament  of 
the  social  circle,  a  painful  object  even  to 
nearest  friends  and  relatives.  But  think- 
ing, on  a  further  experience,  that  there 
was  a  germ  of  promise  in  him  which  re- 
quired only  culture  and  the  pulling  up  of 
weeds  from  around  it,  I  thought  it  best  to 
set  before  him  the  acknowledged  examples 
of  English  composition  in  versej-and  leave 
the  rest  to  natural  emulation .  With  this 
view,  I  accordingly  lent  him  some  volumes 
of  Pope  and  Goldsmith,  to  the  assiduous 
study  of  which  he  promised  to  devote  his 
evenings.  Not  long  afterward,  he  brought 
me  some  verses  written  upon  that  model, 
a  specimen  of  which  I  subjoin,  having 
changed  some  phrases  of  less  elegancy, 
and  a  few  rhymes  objectionable  to  the  cul- 
tivated ear.  The  poem  consisted  of  child- 
ish reminiscences,  and  the  sketches  which 
follow  will  not  seem  destitute  of  truth  to 
those  whose  fortunate  education  began  in 
a  country  village.  And,  first,  let  us  hang 
up  his  charcoal  portrait  of  the  school- 
dame. 

"  Propped  on  the  marsh,  a  dwelling  now,  I  see 
The  humble  school-house  of  my  A,  B,  C, 
Where  well-drilled  urchins,  each  behind  his 
tire, 

Waited  in  ranks  the  wished  command  to  fire, 
Then  all  together,  when  the  signal  came, 
Discharged  their  a-b  abs  against  the  dame. 
Daughter  of  Danaus,  who  could  daily  pour 
In  treacherous  pipkins,  her  Pierian  store, 
She,  mid  the  volleyed  learning  firm  and  calm, 
Patted  the  furlough ed  ferule  on  her  palm, 
And,  to  our  wonder,  could  divine  at  once 
Who  flashed  the  pan,  and  who  was  downright 
dunce. 

"  There  young  Devotion  learned  to  climb  with 

ease 

The  gnarly  limbs  of  Scripture  family-trees, 
And  he  was  most  commended  and  admired 

Discourse  on  the  Late  Eclipse,"  "Dorcas,  a 
Funeral  Sermon  on  the  Death  of  Madam  Sub- 
mit Tidd,  Relict  of  the  late  Experience  Tidd, 
Esq.,"  &c,  &c. 


INTRODUCTION. 


163 


Who  soonest  to  the  topmost  twig  perspired  ; 
Each  name  was  called  as  many  various  ways 
As  pleased  the  reader's  ear  on  different  days, 
So  that  the  weather,  or  the  ferule's  stings, 
Colds  in  the  head,  or  fifty  other  things, 
Transformed  the  helpless  Hebrew  thrice  a 
week 

To  guttural  Pequot  or  resounding  Greek, 
The  vibrant  accent  skipping  here  and  there, 
Just  as  it  pleased  invention  or  despair  ; 
No  controversial  Hebraist  was  the  Dame  ; 
With  or  without  the  points  pleased  her  the 
same  ; 

If  any  tyro  found  a  name  too  tough, 
And  looked  at  her,  pride  furnished  skill 
enough ; 

She  nerved  her  larynx  for  the  desperate  thing, 
And  cleared  the  nve-barred  syllables  at  a 
spring. 

*'Ah,  dear  old  times!  there  once  it  was  my 
hap, 

Perched  on  a  stool,  to  wear  the  long-eared 
cap ; 

From  books  degraded,  there  I  sat  at  ease, 
A  drone,  the  envy  of  compulsory  bees  ; 
Rewards  of  merit,  too,  full  many  a  time, 
Each  with  its  woodcut  and  its  moral  rhyme, 
And  pierced  half-dollars  hung  on  ribbons  gay 
About  my  neck  —  to  be  restored  next  day, 
I  carried  home,  rewards  as  shining  then 
As  those  which  deck  the  lifelong  pains  of  men, 
More  solid  than  the  redemanded  praise 
With  which  the  world  beribbons  later  days. 

"  Ah,  dear  old  times  !  how  brightly  ye  return  ! 
How,  rubbed  afresh,  your  phosphor  traces 
burn  ! 

The  ramble  schoolward  through  dewspark- 
ling  meads 

The  willow-wands  turned  Cinderella  steeds 
The  impromptu  pinbent  hook,  the  deep  re- 
morse 

O'er  the  chance-captured  minnow's  inchlong 
corse ; 

The  pockets,  plethoric  with  marbles  round, 
That  still  a  space  for  ball  and  pegtop  found, 
Nor  satiate  yet,  could  manage  to  confine 
Horsechestnuts,    flagroot,  and  the  kite's 

wound  twine, 
And,  like  the  prophet's  carpet  could  take  in, 
Enlarging  still,  the  popgun's  magazine  ; 
The  dinner  carried  in  the  small  tin  pail, 
Shared  with  some  dog,  whose  most  beseech- 
ing tail 

And  dripping  tongue  and  eager  ears  belied 
The  assumed  indifference  of  canine  pride ; 
The  caper  homeward,  shortened  if  the  cart 
Of  Neighbor  Pomeroy,  trundling  from  the 
mart, 

O'ertook  me,  —  then,  translated  to  the  seat 
I  praised  the  steed,  how  stanch  he  was  and 
fleet, 

While  the  bluff  farmer,  with  superior  grin, 
Explained  where  horses  should  be  thick, 

where  thin, 
And  warned  me  (joke  he  always  had  in  store) 
To  shun  a  beast  that  four  white  stockings 

wore. 

What  a  fine  natural  courtesy  was  his  ! 
His  nod  was  pleasure,  and  his  full  bow  bliss  ; 
How  did  his  well-thumbed  hat,  with  ardor 
rapt, 

Its  curve  decorous  to  each  rank  adapt ! 


How  did  it  graduate  with  a  courtly  ease 
The  whole  long  scale  of  social  differences, 
Yet  so  gave  each  his  measure  running  o'er, 
None  thought  his  own  was  less,  his  neighbor's 
more  ; 

The  squire  was  flattered,  and  the  pauper  knew 
Old  times  acknowledged  'neath  the  thread- 
bare blue ! 

Dropped  at  the  corner  of  the  embowered  lane, 
Whistling  I  wade  the  knee-deep  leaves  again, 
While  eager  Argus,  who  has  missed  all  day 
The  sharer  of  his  condescending  play, 
Comes  leaping  onward  with  a  bark  elate 
And  boisterous  tail  to  greet  me  at  the  gate  ; 
That  I  was  true  in  absence  to  our  love 
Let  the  thick  dog's-ears  in  my  primer  prove. " 

I  add  only  one  further  extract,  which 
will  possess  a  melancholy  interest  to  all 
such  as  have  endeavored  to  glean  the  ma- 
terials of  revolutionary  history  from  the 
lips  of  aged  persons,  who  took  a  part  in 
the  actual  making  of  it,  and,  finding  the 
manufacture  profitable,  continued  the  sup- 
ply in  an  adequate  proportion  to  the  de- 
mand. 

* '  Old  J oe  is  gone,  who  saw  hot  Percy  goad 
His  slow  artillery  up  the  Concord  road, 
A  tale  which  grew  in  wonder,  year  by  year, 
As,  every  time  he  told  it,  Joe  drew  near 
To  the  main  fight,  till,  faded  and  grown  gray, 
The  original  scene  to  bolder  tints  gave  way ; 
Then  Joe  had  heard  the  foe's  scared  double- 
quick 

Beat  on  stove  drum  with  one  uncaptured 
stick, 

And,  ere  death  came  the  lengthening  tale  to 
lop, 

Himself  had  fired,  and  seen  a  red-coat  drop  ; 
Had  J  oe  lived  long  enough,  that  scrambling 
fight 

Had  squared  more  nearly  with  his  sense  of 
right, 

And  vanquished  Percy,  to  complete  the  tale, 
Had  hammered  stone  for  life  in  Concord  jail." 

I  do  not  know  that  the  foregoing  ex- 
tracts ought  not  to  be  called  my  own 
rather  than  Mr.  Biglow's,  as,  indeed,  he 
maintained  stoutly  that  my  file  had  left 
nothing  of  his  in  them.  I  should  not, 
perhaps,  have  felt  entitled  to  take  so  great 
liberties  with  them,  had  I  not  more  than 
suspected  an  hereditary  vein  of  poetry  in 
myself,  a  very  near  ancestor  having  writ- 
ten a  Latin  poem  in  the  Harvard  Gratula- 
tio  on  the  accession  of  George  the  Third. 
Suffice  it  to  say,  that,  whether  not  satis- 
fied with  such  limited  approbation  as  I 
could  conscientiously  bestow,  or  from  a 
sense  of  natural  inaptitude,  certain  it  is 
that  my  young  friend  could  never  be  in- 
duced to  any  further  essays  in  this  kind. 
He  affirmed  that  it  was  to  him  like  writ- 
ing in  a  foreign  tongue,  — that  Mr.  Pope's 
versification  was  like  the  regular  ticking 
of  one  of  Willard's  clocks,  in  which  one 
could  fancy,  after  long  listening,  a  certain 


164 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


kind  of  rhythm  or  tune;  but  which  yet 
was  only  a  poverty-stricken  tick,  tick,  af- 
ter all,  —  and  that  he  had  never  seen  a 
sweet-water  on  a  trellis  growing  so  fairly, 
or  in  forms  so  pleasing  to  his  eye,  as  a  fox- 
grape  over  a  scrub-oak  in  a  swamp.  He 
added  I  know  not  what,  to  the  effect  that 
the  sweet-water  would  only  be  the  more 
disfigured  by  having  its  leaves  starched 
and  ironed  out,  and  that  Pegasus  (so  he 
called  him)  hardly  looked  right  with  his 
mane  and  tail  in  curl-papers.  These  and 
other  such  opinions  I  did  not  long  strive 
to  eradicate,  attributing  them  rather  to  a 
defective  education  and  senses  untuned  by 
too  long  familiarity  with  purely  natural  ob- 
jects, than  to  a  perverted  moral  sense.  I 
was  the  more  inclined  to  this  leniency  since 
sufficient  evidence  was  not  to  seek,  that 
his  verses,  as  wanting  as  they  certainly 
were  in  classic  polish  and  point,  had  some- 
how taken  hold  of  the  public  ear  in  a  sur- 
prising manner.  So,  only  setting  him  right 
as  to  the  quantity  of  the  proper  name  Pega- 
sus, I  left  him  to  follow  the  bent  of  his  nat- 
ural genius. 

Yet  could  I  not  surrender  him  wholly 
to  the  tutelage  of  the  pagan  (which,  lit- 
erally interpreted,  signifies  village)  muse 
without  yet  a  further  effort  for  his  conver- 
sion, and  to  this  end  I  resolved  that  what- 
ever of  poetic  fire  yet  burned  in  myself, 
aided  by  the  assiduous  bellows  of  correct 
models,  should  be  put  in  requisition.  Ac- 
cordingly, when  my  ingenious  young  par- 
ishioner brought  to  my  study  a  copy  of 
verses  which  he  had  written  touching  the 
acquisition  of  territory  resulting  from  the 
Mexican  war,  and  the  folly  of  leaving  the 
question  of  slavery  or  freedom  to  the  ad- 
judication of  chance,  I  did  myself  indite 
a  short  fable  or  apologue  after  the  man- 
ner of  Gay  and  Prior,  to  the  end  that  he 
might  see  how  easily  even  such  subjects 
as  he  treated  of  were  capable  of  a  more 
refined  style  and  more  elegant  expression. 
Mr*  Biglow's  production  was  as  follows  :— 

THE  TWO  GUNNERS. 

A  FABLE. 

Two  fellers,  Isrel  named  and  Joe, 
One  Sundy  mornin'  'greed  to  go 
Agunnin'  soon'z  the  bells  wuz  done 
And  meetin'  finally  begun, 
So'st  no  one  would  n't  be  about 
Ther  Sabbath-break  in'  to  spy  out. 

Joe  did  n't  want  to  go  a  mite ; 

He  felt  ez  though 't  warnt  skeereely  right, 

But,  when  his  doubts  he  went  to  speak  on, 

Isrel  he  up  and  called  him  Deacon, 

An'  kep'  apokin'  fun  like  sin 

An'  then  arubbin'  on  it  in, 

Till  Joe,  less  sUeered  o'  doin'  wrong 

Than  bein'  laughed  at,  went  along. 


Past  noontime  they  went  trampin'  round 

An'  nary  thing  to  pop  at  found, 

Till,  fairly  tired  o'  their  spree, 

They  leaned  their  guns  agin  a  tree, 

An'  jest  ez  they  wuz  settin'  down 

To  take  their  noonin',  Joe  looked  roun' 

And  see  (acrost  lots  in  a  pond 

That  warn't  mor  'n  twenty  rod  beyond), 

A  goose  that  on  the  water  sot 

Ez  ef  awaitin'  to  be  shot. 

Isrel  he  ups  and  grabs  his  gun  ; 

Sez  he,  "  By  ginger,  here 's  some  fun  !" 

"  Don't  fire,"  sez  Joe,  "it  aint  no  use, 

Thet 's  Deacon  Peleg's  tame  wil'-goose  " : 

Seys  Isrel,  "  I  don't  care  a  cent. 

I 've  sighted  an'  I  '11  let  her  went "  ; 

Bang !  went  queen's-arm,  ole  gander  flopped 

His  wings  a  spell,  an'  quorked,  an'  dropped. 

Sez  Joe,  "  I  would  n't  ha'  been  hired 
At  that  poor  critter  to  ha'  fired, 
But  sence  it 's  clean  gin  up  the  ghost, 
We  '11  hev  the  tallest  kind  o'  roast ; 
I  guess  our  waistbands  '11  be  tight 
'Fore  it  comes  ten  o'clock  ternight." 

"  I  won't  agree  to  no  such  bender," 
Sez  Isrel ;  "  keep  it  tell  it's  tender  ; 
'T  aint  wuth  a  snap  afore  it's  ripe." 
Sez  Joe,  "  I 'd  jest  ez  lives  eat  tripe ; 
You  air  a  buster  ter  suppose 
I 'd  eat  what  makes  me  hoi'  my  nose ! " 

So  they  disputed  to  an'  fro 
Till  cunnin'  Isrel  sez  to  Joe, 
44  Don't  le's  stay  here  an'  play  the  fool, 
Le 's  wait  till  both  on  us  git  cool, 
Jest  for  a  day  or  two  le's  hide  it 
An'  then  toss  up  an'  so  decide  it." 
44  Agreed  ! "  sez  Joe,  an'  so  they  did, 
An'  the  ole  goose  wuz  safely  hid. 

Now 't  wuz  the  hottest  kind  o'  weather, 
An'  when  at  last  they  come  together, 
It  did.  n't  signify  which  won, 
Fer  all  the  mischief  hed  been  done  : 
The  goose  wuz  there,  but,  fer  his  soul, 
Joe  would  n't  ha'  tetched  it  with  a  pole  ; 
But  Isrel  kind  o'  liked  the  smell  on 't 
An'  made  his  dinner  very  well  on 't. 

My  own  humble  attempt  was  in  manner 
and  form  following,  and  I  print  it  here,  I 
sincerely  trust,  out  of  no  vainglory,  but 
solely  with  the  hope  of  doing  good. 

LEAVING  THE  MATTER  OPEN. 

A  TALE. 
BY  HOMER  WILBUR,   A.  M. 

Two  brothers  once,  an  ill-matched  pair, 
Together  dwelt  (no  matter  where), 
To  whom  an  Uncle  Sam,  or  some  one, 
Had  left  a  house  and  farm  in  common. 
The  two  in  principles  and  habits 
Were  different  as  rats  from  rabbits  ; 
Stout  Farmer  North,  with  frugal  care, 
Laid  up  provision  for  his  heir, 
Not  scorning  with  hard  sun-browned  hands 
To  scrape  acquaintance  with  his  lands  ; 


INTRODUCTION. 


165 


Whatever  thing  he  had  to  do 

He  did,  and  made  it  pay  hirn,  too  ; 

He  sold  his  waste  stone  by  the  pound, 

His  drains  made  water-wheels  spin  round, 

His  ice  in  summer-time  he  sold, 

His  wood  brought  profit  when 't  was  cold, 

He  dug  and  delved  from  morn  till  night, 

Strove  to  make  profit  square  with  right, 

Lived  on  his  means,  cut  no  great  dash, 

And  paid  his  debts  in  honest  cash. 

On  tother  hand,  his  brother  South 

Lived  very  much  from  hand  to  mouth, 

Played  gentleman,  nursed  dainty  hands, 

Borrowed  North's  money  on  his  lands, 

And  culled  his  morals  and  his  graces 

From  cock-pits,  bar-rooms,  fights,  and  races  ; 

His  sole  work  in  the  fanning  line 

Was  keeping  droves  of  long-legged  swine, 

Which  brought  great  bothers  and  expenses 

To  North  in  looking  after  fences, 

And,  when  they  happened  to  break  through, 

Cost  him  both  time  and  temper  too, 

For  South  insisted  it  was  plain 

He  ought  to  drive  them  home  again, 

And  North  consented  to  the  work 

Because  he  loved  to  buy  cheap  pork. 

Meanwhile,  South's  swine  increasing  fast, 
His  farm  became  too  small  at  last ; 
So,  having  thought  the  matter  over, 
And  feeling  bound  to  live  in  clover 
And  never  pay  the  clover's  worth, 
He  said  one  day  to  Brother  North  :  — 

"Our  families  are  both  increasing, 
And,  though  we  labor  without  ceasing, 
Our  produce  soon  will  be  too  scant 
To  keep  our  children  out  of  want ; 
They  who  wish  fortune,  to  be  lasting 
Must  be  both  prudent  and  forecasting  ; 
We  soon  shall  need  more  land  ;  a  lot 
I  know,  that  cheaply  can  be  bo't ; 
You  lend  the  cash,  I  '11  buy  the  acres, 
And  we  '11  be  equally  partakers. " 

Poor  North,  whose  Anglo-Saxon  blood 
Gave  him  a  hankering  after  mud, 
Wavered  a  moment,  then  consented, 
And,  when  the  cash  was  paid,  repented  ; 
To  make  the  new  land  worth  a  pin. 
Thought  he,  it  must>  be  all  fenced  in, 
For,  if  South's  swine  once  get  the  run  on  *t 
No  kind  of  farming  can  be  done  on't ; 
If  that  don't  suit  the  other  side, 
'T  is  best  we  instantly  divide. 

But  somehow  South  could  ne'er  incline 
This  way  or  that  to  run  the  line, 
And  always  found  some  new  pretence 
'Gainst  setting  the  division  fence  ; 
At  last  he  said  :  — 

"  For  peace's  sake, 
Liberal  concessions  I  will  make  ; 
Though  I  believe,  upon  my  soul, 
I 've  a  just  title  to  the  whole, 
I  '11  make  an  offer  which  I  call 
Gen'rous,  —  we  '11  have  no  fence  at  all ; 
Then  both  of  us,  whene'er  we  choose, 
Can  take  what  part  we  want  to  use  ; 
If  you  should  chance  to  need  it  first, 
Pick  you  the  best,  I'll  take  the  worst." 


"  Agreed  !"  cried  North  ;  thought  he,  This  fall 
With  wheat  and  rye  I  '11  sow  it  all ; 
In  that  way  I  shall  get  the  start, 
And  South  may  whistle  for  his  part. 
So  thought,  so  done,  the  field  was  sown, 
And,  winter  having  come  and  gone., 
Sly  North  walked  blithely  forth  to  spy, 
The  progress  of  his  wheat  and  rye  ; 
Heavens,  what  a  sight !  his  brother's  swine 
Had  asked  themselves  all  out  to  dine  ; 
Such  grunting,  munching,  rooting,  shoving, 
The  soil  seemed  all  alive  and  moving, 
As  for  his  grain,  such  work  they 'd  made  on 't, 
He  could  n't  spy  a  single  blade  on 't. 

Off  in  a  rage  he  rushed  to  South, 
"My  wheat  and   rye"  — grief  choked  his 
mouth  ; 

"  Pray  don't  mind  me,"  said  South,  "  but  plant 
All  of  the  new  land  that  you  want "  ; 
"  Yes,  but  your  hogs,"  cried  North  ; 

"  The  grain 
Won't  hurt  them,"  answered  South  again  ; 
"  But  they  destroy  my  crop  "  ; 

"No  doubt  ; 
'T  is  fortunate  you 've  found  it  out ; 
Misfortunes  teach,  and  only  they, 
You  must  not  sow  it  in  their  way  "  ; 
"Nay,  you,"  says  North,  "must  keep  them 
out " ; 

"  Did  I  create  them  with  a  snout  ?  " 
Asked  South  demurely  ;  "  as  agreed, 
The  land  is  open  to  your  seed, 
And  would  you  fain  prevent  my  pigs 
From  running  there  their  harmless  rigs? 
God  knows  I  view  this  compromise 
With  not  the  most  approving  eyes  ; 
I  gave  up  my  unquestioned  rights 
For  sake  of  quiet  days  and  nights  ; 
I  offered  then,  you  know 't  is  true, 
To  cut  the  piece  of  land  in  two." 
"  Then  cut  it  now,"  growls  North ; 

"  Abate 

Your  heat,"  says  South,  " 't  is  now  too  late  ; 

I  offered  you  the  rocky  corner, 

But  you,  of  your  own  good  the  scorner, 

Refused  to  take  it ;  I  am  sorry  ; 

No  doubt  you  might  have  found  a  quarry, 

Perhaps  a  gold-mine,  for  aught  I  know, 

Containing  heaps  of  native  rhino  ; 

You  can't  expect  me  to  resign 

My  rights  "  — 

"  But  where,"  quoth  North,  "are  mine?" 
Your  rights,"  says  tother,  "  well,  that 's  funny, 
I  bought  the  land  "  — 

"  I  paid  the  money  " ; 
"  That,"  answered  South,  "  is  from  the  point, 
The  ownership,  you  '11  grant,  is  joint ; 
I 'm  sure  my  only  hope  and  trust  is 
Not  law  so  much  as  abstract  justice, 
Though,  you  remember,  't  was  agreed 
That  so  and  so  —  consult  the  deed  ; 
Objections  now  are  out  of  date, 
They  might  have  answered  once,  but  Fate 
Quashes  them  at  the  point  we 've  got  to  ; 
Obsta  principiis,  that's  my  motto." 
So  saying,  South  began  to  whistle 
And  looked  as  obstinate  as  gristle, 
While  North  went  homeward,  each  brown  paw 
Clenched  like  a  knot  of  natural  law, 
And  all  the  while,  in  either  ear, 
Heard  something  clicking  wondrous  clear. 


166 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


To  turn  now  to  other  matters,  there  are 
two  things  upon  which  it  would  seem  fitting 
to  dilate  somewhat  more  largely  in  this 
place,  — the  Yankee  character  and  the  Yan- 
kee dialect.  And,  first,  of  the  Yankee  char- 
acter, which  has  wanted  neither  open  ma- 
ligners,  nor  even  more  dangerous  enemies 
in  the  persons  of  those  unskilful  painters 
who  have  given  to  it  that  hardness,  angu- 
larity, and  want  of  proper  perspective, 
which,  in  truth,  belonged,  not  to  their 
subject,  but  to  their  own  niggard  and  un- 
skilful pencil. 

New  England  was  not  so  much  the  col- 
ony of  a  mother  country,  as  a  Hagar  driven 
forth  into  the  wilderness.  The  little  self- 
exiled  band  which  came  hither  in  1620 
came,  not  to  seek  gold,  but  to  found  a 
democracy.  They  came  that  they  might 
have  the  privilege  to  work  and  pray,  to  sit 
upon  hard  benches  and  listen  to  painful 
preachers  as  long  as  they  would,  yea,  even 
unto  thirty-seven thly,  if  the  spirit  so 
willed  it.  And  surely,  if  the  Greek  might 
boast  his  Thermopylae,  where  three  hun- 
dred men  fell  in  resisting  the  Persian,  we 
may  well  be  proud  of  our  Plymouth  Rock, 
where  a  handful  of  men,  women,  and  chil- 
dren not  merely  faced,  but  vanquished, 
winter,  famine,  the  wilderness,  and  the  yet 
more  invincible  storge  that  drew  them  back 
to  the  green  island  far  away.  These  found 
no  lotus  growing  upon  the  surly  shore,  the 
taste  of  which  could  make  them  forget 
their  little  native  Ithaca  ;  nor  were  they  so 
wanting  to  themselves  in  faith  as  to  burn 
their  ship,  but  could  seethe  fair  west- wind 
belly  the  homeward  sail,  and  then  turn 
unrepining  to  grapple  with  the  terrible 
Unknown. 

As  Want  was  the  prime  foe  these  hardy 
exodists  had  to  fortress  themselves  against, 
so  it  is  little  wonder  if  that  traditional 
feud  is  long  in  wearing  out  of  the  stock. 
The  wounds  of  the  old  warfare  were  long 
a-healing,  and  an  east- wind  of  hard  times 
puts  a  new  ache  in  every  one  of  them. 
Thrift  was  the  first  lesson  in  their  horn- 
book, pointed  out,  letter  after  letter,  by  the 
lean  finger  of  the  hard  schoolmaster,  Ne- 
cessity. Neither  were  those  plump,  rosy- 
gilled  Englishmen  that  came  hither,  but  a 
hard-faced,  atrabilious,  earnest-eyed  race, 
stiff  from  long  wrestling  with  the  Lord  in 
prayer,  and  who  had  taught  Satan  to 
dread  the  new  Puritan  hug.  Add  two 
hundred  years'  influence  of  soil,  climate, 
and  exposure,  with  its  necessary  result  of 
idiosyncrasies,  and  we  have  the  present 
Yankee,  full  of  expedients,  half-master  of 
all  trades,  inventive  in  all  but  the  beauti- 
ful, full  of  shifts,  not  yet  capable  of  com- 
fort, aimed  at  all  points  against  the  old 


enemy  Hunger,  longanimous,  good  at 
patching,  not  so  careful  for  what  is  best 
as  for  what  will  do,  with  a  clasp  to  his 
purse  and  a  button  to  his  pocket,  not 
skilled  to  build  against  Time,  as  in  old 
countries,  but  against  sore-pressing  Need, 
accustomed  to  move  the  world  with  no 
ttov  a™  but  his  own  two  feet,  and  no  lever 
but  his  own  long  forecast.  A  strange 
hybrid,  indeed,  did  circumstance  beget, 
here  in  the  New  World,  upon  the  old 
Puritan  stock,  and  the  earth  never  before 
saw  such  mystic-practicalism,  such  nig- 
gard-geniality, such  calculating-fanaticism, 
such  cast-iron-enthusiasm,  such  sour-faced- 
humor,  such  close-fisted-generosity.  This 
new  Grceculus  esuriens  will  make  a  living 
out  of  anything.  He  will  invent  new 
trades  as  well  as  tools.  His  brain  is  his 
capital,  and  he  will  get  education  at  all 
risks.  Put  him  on  Juan  Fernandez,  and 
he  would  make  a  spelling-book  first,  and  a 
salt-pan  afterward.  In  ccelum,  jusseris. 
ibit,  —  or  the  other  way  either,  —  it  is  all 
one,  so  anything  is  to  be  got  by  it.  Yet, 
after  all,  thin,,  speculative  Jonathan  is 
more  like  the  Englishman  of  two  centuries 
ago  than  John  Bull  himself  is.  He  has 
lost  somewhat  in  solidity,  has  become  flu- 
ent and  adaptable,  but  more  of  the  origi- 
nal groundwork  of  character  remains.  He 
feels  more  at  home  with  Fulke  Greville, 
Herbert  of  Cherbury,  Quarles,  George  Her- 
bert, and  Browne,  than  with  his  modern 
English  cousins.  He  is  nearer  than  John, 
by  at  least  a  hundred  years,  to  Naseby, 
Marston  Moor,  Worcester,  and  the  time 
when,  if  ever,  there  were  true  Englishmen. 
John  Bull  has  suffered  the  idea  of  the 
Invisible  to  be  very  much  fattened  out  of 
him.  Jonathan  is  conscious  still  that  he 
lives  in  the  world  of  the  Unseen  as  well  as 
of  the  Seen.  To  move  John  you  must 
make  your  fulcrum  of  solid  beef  and  pud- 
ding ;  an  abstract  idea  will  do  for  J  ona- 
than. 


*#*  TO  THE  INDULGENT  READER. 

My  friend,  the  Rev.  Mr.  Wilbur,  having  been 
seized  with  a  dangerous  fit  of  illness,  before 
this  Introduction  had  passed  through  the  press, 
and  being  incapacitated  for  all  literary  exer- 
tion, sent  to  me  his  notes,  memoranda,  &e., 
and  requested  me  to  fashion  them  into  some 
shape  more  fitting  for  the  general  eye.  This, 
owing  to  the  fragmentary  and  disjointed  state 
of  his  manuscripts,  I  have  felt  wholly  unable  to 
do  ;  yet,  being  unwilling  that  the  reader  should 
be  deprived  of  such  parts  of  his  lucubrations  as 
seemed  more  finished,  and  not  well  discerning 
how  to  segregate  these  from  the  rest,  I  have 
concluded  to  send  them  all  to  the  press  pre- 
cisely as  they  are.       Columbus  Nye, 

Pastor  of  a  Church  in  Bungtown  Corner. 


INTRODUCTION. 


167 


It  remains  to  speak  of  the  Yankee  dia- 
lect. And,  first,  it  may  be  premised,  in  a 
general  way,  that  any  one  much  read  in 
the  writings  of  the  early  colonists  need 
not  be  told  that  the  far  greater  share  of 
the  words  and  phrases  now  esteemed  pe- 
culiar to  New  England,  and  local  there, 
were  brought  from  the  mother  country. 
A  person  familiar  with  the  dialect  of  cer- 
tain portions  of  Massachusetts  will  not 
fail  to  recognize,  in  ordinary  discourse, 
many  words  now  noted  in  English  vocabu- 
laries as  archaic,  the  greater  part  of  which 
were  in  common  use  about  the  time  of 
the  King  James  translation  of  the  Bible. 
Shakespeare  stands  less  in  need  of  a  glos- 
sary to  most  New-Englanders  than  to 
many  a  native  of  the  Old  Country.  The 
peculiarities  of  our  speech,  however,  are 
rapidly  wearing  out.  As  there  is  no 
country  where  reading  is  so  universal  and 
newspapers  are  so  multitudinous,  so  no 
phrase  remains  long  local,  but  is  trans- 
planted in  the  mail-bags  to  every  remotest 
corner  of  the  land.  Consequently  our 
dialect  approaches  nearer  to  uniformity 
than  that  of  any  other  nation. 

The  English  have  complained  of  us  for 
coining  new  words.  Many  of  those  so 
stigmatized  were  old  ones  by  them  forgot- 
ten, and  all  make  now  an  unquestioned 
part  of  the  currency,  wherever  English  is 
spoken.  Undoubtedly,  we  have  a  right  to 
make  new  words,  as  they  are  needed  by 
the  fresh  aspects  under  which  life  presents 
itself  here  in  the  New  World ;  and,  indeed, 
wherever  a  language  is  alive,  it  grows.  It 
might  be  questioned  whether  we  could  not 
establish  a  stronger  title  to  the  ownership 
of  the  English  tongue  than  the  mother- 
islanders  themselves.  Here,  past  all  ques- 
tion, is  to  be  its  great  home  and  centre. 
And  not  only  is  it  already  spoken  here  by 
greater  numbers,  but  with  a  far  higher 
popular  average  of  correctness  than  in 
Britain.  The  great  writers  of  it,  too,  we 
might  claim  as  ours,  were  ownership  to  be 
settled  by  the  number  of  readers  and  lovers. 

•  As  regards  the  provincialisms  to  be  met 
with  in  this  volume,  I  may  say  that  the 
reader  will  not  find  one  which  is  not  (as  I 
believe)  either  native  or  imported  with  the 
early  settlers,  nor  one  which  I  have  not, 
with  my  own  ears,  heard  in  familiar  use. 
In  the  metrical  portion  of  the  book,  I 
have  endeavored  to  adapt  the  spelling  as 
nearly  as  possible  to  the  ordinary  mode  of 
pronunciation.  Let  the  reader  who  deems 
me  over-particular  remember  this  caution 
of  Martial :  — 

"  Quern  recitas,  mens  est,  0  Fidentine,  libellus  ; 
Sed  male  cum  recitas,  incipit  esse  tuus." 


A  few  further  explanatory  remarks  will 
not  be  impertinent. 

I  shall  barely  lay  down  a  few  general 
rules  for  the  reader's  guidance. 

1.  The  genuine  Yankee  never  gives  the 
rough  sound  to  the  r  when  he  can  help  it, 
and  often  displays  considerable  ingenuity 
in  avoiding  it  even  before  a  vowel. 

2.  He  seldom  sounds  the  final  g,  a  piece 
of  self-denial,  if  we  consider  his  partiality 
for  nasals.  The  same  of  the  final  d,  as 
harC  and  start  for  hand  and  stand. 

3.  The  h  in  such  words  as  while }  when, 
where,  he  omits  altogether. 

4.  In  regard  to  a,  he  shows  some  incon- 
sistency, sometimes  giving  a  close  and 
obscure  sound,  as  hev  for  have,  hendy  for 
handy,  ez  for  as,  thet  for  that,  and  again 
giving  it  the  broad  sound  it  has  in  father, 
as  hdnsome  for  handsome. 

5.  To  the  sound  ou  he  prefixes  an  e 
(hard  to  exemplify  otherwise  than  orally). 

The  following  passage  in  Shakespeare 
he  would  recite  thus  :  — 

"  Neow  is  the  winta  uv  eour  discontent 
Med  glorious  sumrna  by  this  sun  o'  Yock, 
An'  all  the  cleouds  thet  leowered  upun  eour 
heouse 

In  the  deep  buzzum  o'  the  oshin  buried  ; 
Neow  air  eour  breows  beound  'ith  victorious 
wreaths  ; 

Eour  breused  arms  hung  up  fer  inoniniunce  ; 
Eour  starn  alarums  changed  to  merry  meetins, 
Eour  dreffle  marches  to  delighfle  masures. 
Grim-visagedwar  heth  smeuthed  his  wrinkled 
front, 

An'  neow,  instid  o'  mountin'  barebid  steeds 
To  fright  the  souls  o'  ferfle  edverseries, 
He  capers  nimly  in  a  lady's  chamber, 
To  the  lascivious  pleasin'  uv  a  loot." 

6.  A  u,  in  such  words  as  daughter  and 
slaughter,  he  pronounces  ah. 

7.  To  the  dish  thus  seasoned  add  a  drawl 
ad  libitum. 

[Mr.  Wilbur's  notes  here  become  entirely 
fragmentary.  —  C.  N.J 

a.  Unable  to  procure  a  likeness  of  Mr. 
Biglow,  I  thought  the  curious  reader  might 
be  gratified  with  a  sight  of  the  editorial 
effigies.  And  here  a  choice  between  two 
was  offered,  —  the  one  a  profile  (entirely 
black)  cut  by  Doyle,  the  other  a  portrait 
painted  by  a  native  artist  of  much  promise. 
The  first  of  these  seemed  wanting  in  ex- 
pression, and  in  the  second  a  slight  obliq- 
uity of  the  visual  organs  has  been  height- 
ened (perhaps  from  an  over-desire  of  force 
on  the  part  of  the  artist)  into  too  close  an 
approach  to  actual  strabismus.  This  slight 
divergence  in  my  optical  apparatus  from 
the  ordinary  model  —  however  I  may  have 


168 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


been  taught  to  regard  it  in  the  light  of  a 
mercy  rather  than  a  cross,  since  it  enabled 
me  to  give  as  much  of  directness  and  per- 
sonal application  to  my  discourses  as  met 
the  wants  of  my  congregation,  without 
risk  of  offending  any  by  being  supposed  to 
have  him  or  her  in  my  eye  (as  the  saying 
is) — seemed  yet  to  Mrs.  Wilbur  a  sufficient 
objection  to  the  engraving  of  the  aforesaid 
painting.  We  read  of  many  who  either 
absolutely  refused  to  allow  the  copying  of 
their  features,  as  especially  did  Plotinus 
and  Agesilaus  among  the  ancients,  not  to 
mention  the  more  modern  instances  of 
Scioppius,  Palseottus,  Pinellus,  Velserus, 
Gataker,  and  others,  or  were  indifferent 
thereto,  as  Cromwell. 

0.  Yet  was  Caesar  desirous  of  concealing 
his  baldness.  Per  contra,  my  Lord  Pro- 
tector's carefulness  in  the  matter  of  his 
wart  might  be  cited.  Men  generally  more 
desirous  of  being  improved  in  their  por- 
traits than  characters.  Shall  probably 
find  very  unflattered  likenesses  of  ourselves 
in  Recording  Angel's  gallery. 

y.  Whether  any  of  our  national  peculiar- 
ities may  be  traced  to  our  use  of  stoves,  as 
a  certain  closeness  of  the  lips  in  pronuncia- 
tion, and  a  smothered  smoulderingness  of 
disposition  seldom  roused  to  open  flame  ? 
An  unrestrained  intercourse  with  fire  prob- 
ably conducive  to  generosity  and  hospi- 
tality of  soul.  Ancient  Mexicans  used 
stoves,  as  the  friar  Augustin  Ruiz  reports, 
Hakluyt,  III.  468,  —  but  Popish  priests 
not  always  reliable  authority. 

To-day  picked  my  Isabella  grapes.  Crop 
injured  by  attacks  of  rose-bug  in  the 
spring.  Whether  Noah  was  justifiable  in 
preserving  this  class  of  insects  ? 

5.  Concerning  Mr.  Biglow's  pedigree. 
Tolerably  certain  that  there  was  never  a 
poet  among  his  ancestors.  An  ordination 
hymn  attributed  to  a  maternal  uncle,  but 
perhaps  a  sort  of  production  not  demand- 
ing the  creative  faculty. 

His  grandfather  a  painter  of  the  gran- 
diose or  Michael  Angelo  school.  Seldom 
painted  objects  smaller  than  houses  or 
barns,  and  these  with  uncommon  ex- 
pression. 

e.  Of  the  Wilburs  no  complete  pedigree. 
The  crest  said  to  be  a  wild  boar,  whence, 
perhaps,  the  name.  (?)  A  connection  with 
the  Earls  of  Wilbraham  (quasi  wild  boar 
ham)  might  be  made  out.  This  suggestion 
worth  following  up.    In  1677,  John  W.  m. 

Expect  ,  had  issue,  1.  John,  2.  Hag- 

gai,  3.  Expect,  4.  Ruhamah,  5.  Desire. 


"  Hear  lyes  ye  bodye  of  Mrs  Expect  Wilber, 
Ye  crewell  salvages  they  kil'd  her 
Together  wth  other  Christian  soles  eleaven, 
October  ye  ix  daye,  1707. 
Ye  stream  of  J ordan  sh'  as  crost  ore 
And  now  expeacts  me  on  ye  other  shore  : 
I  live  in  hope  her  soon  to  join  ; 
Her  earthlye  yeeres  were  forty  and  nine. " 
From,  Gravestone  in  Pekussett,  North  Parish. 

This  is  unquestionably  the  same  John 
who  afterward  (1711)  married  Tabitha 
Hagg  or  Ragg. 

But  if  this  were  the  case,  she  seems  to 
have  died  early  ;  for  only  three  years  after, 
namely,  1714,  we  have  evidence  that  he 
married  Winifred,  daughter  of  Lieutenant 
Tipping. 

He  seems  to  have  been  a  man  of  sub- 
stance, for  we  find  him  in  1696  conveying 
"  one  undivided  eightieth  part  of  a  salt- 
meadow  "  in  Yabbok,  and  he  commanded 
a  sloop  in  1702. 

Those  who  doubt  the  importance  of  gen- 
ealogical studies  fuste  potius  quam  argu- 
mento  erudiendi. 

I  trace  him  as  far  as  1723,  and  there  lose 
him.  In  that  yearhewas  chosen  selectman. 

No  gravestone.  Perhaps  overthrown 
when  new  hearse-house  was  built,  1802. 

He  was  probably  the  son  of  John,  who 
came  from  Bilham  Com  it.  Salop,  circa  1642. 

This  first  John  was  a  man  of  consider- 
able importance,  being  twice  mentioned 
with  the  honorable  prefix  of  Mr.  in  the 
town  records.    Name  spelt  with  two  Z-s. 

"  Hear  lyeth  ye  bod  [stone  unhappily  broken.] 
Mr.  Ihon  Willber  [Esq.]    [1  inclose  this  in 
brackets  as  doubtful.  To  me  it  seems  clear.  ] 

Ob't  die  [illegible;  looks  like  xviii.]  

iii  [prob.  1693.] 

  paynt 

.   deseased  seinte  : 
A  friend  and  [fath]er  untoe  all  ye  opreast, 
Hee  gave  ye  wicked  familists  noe  reast, 
When  Sat  [an  bl]ewe  his  Antinomian  blaste, 
Wee  clong  to  [Willber  as  a  steadfjast  maste. 
[A]  gaynst  ye  horrid  Qua[kers]  " 

It  is  greatly  to  be  lamented  that  this 
curious  epitaph  is  mutilated.  It  is  said 
that  the  sacrilegious  British  soldiers  made 
a  target  of  this  stone  during  the  war  of 
Independence.  How  odious  an  animosity 
which  pauses  not  at  the  grave  !  How 
brutal  that  which  spares  not  the  monu- 
ments of  authentic  history  !  This  is  not 
improbably  from  the  pen  of  Rev.  Moody 
Pyram,  who  is  mentioned  by  Hubbard  as 
having  been  noted  for  a  silver  vein  of 
poetry.  If  his  papers  be  still  extant,  a 
I  copy  might  possibly  be  recovered. 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPEES. 


No.  I. 
A  LETTER 

FROM  MR.  EZEKIEL  BIGLOW  OF  .TAALAM  TO 
THE  HON.  JOSEPH  T.  BUCKINGHAM,  ED- 
ITOR OF  THE  BOSTON  COURIER,  INCLOS- 
ING A  POEM  OF  HIS  SON,  MR.  HOSEA 
BIGLOW. 

Jaylem,  jime  1846. 

Mister  Eddtter  :  —  Our  Hosea  wuz 
down  to  Boston  last  week,  and  he  see  a 
cruetin  Sarjunt  a  struttin  round  as  popler 
as  a  hen  with  1  chicking,  with  2  fellers  a 
drummin  and  fifin  arter  him  like  all  nater. 
the  sarjunt  he  thout  Hosea  hed  n't  gut  his 
i  teeth  cut  cos  he  looked  a  kindo 's  though 
he'd  jest  com  down,  so  he  cal'lated  to 
hook  him  in,  but  Hosy  wood  n't  take  none 
o'  his  sarse  for  all  he  hed  much  as  20 
Rooster's  tales  stuck  onto  his  hat  and 
eenamost  enuf  brass  a  bobbin  up  and  down 
on  his  shoulders  and  figureed  onto  his  coat 
and  trousis,  let  alone  wut  nater  hed  sot 
in  his  featers,  to  make  a  6  pounder  out  on. 

wal,  Rosea  he  com  home  considerabal 
riled,  and  arter  I 'd  gone  to  bed  I  heern 
Him  a  thrashin  round  like  a  short-tailed 
Bull  in  fli-time.  The  old  Woman  ses  she 
to  me  ses  she,  Zekle,  ses  she,  our  Hosee 's 
gut  the  chollery  or  suthin  anuther  ses  she, 
don't  you  Bee  skeered,  ses  I,  he 's  oney 
amakin  pottery*  ses  i,  he  's  oilers  on 
hand  at  that  ere  busynes  like  Da  k  mar- 
tin, and  shure  enuf,  cum  mornin,  Hosy  he 
cum  down  stares  full  chizzle,  hare  on  eend 
and  cote  tales  flyin,  and  sot  rite  of  to  go 
reed  his  varses  to  Parson  Wilbur  bein  he 
haint  aney  grate  shows  o'  book  larnin  him- 
self, bimeby  he  cum  back  and  sed  the 
parson  wuz  dreffle  tickled  with  'em  as  i 
hoop  you  will  Be,  and  said  they  wuz  True 
grit. 

Hosea  ses  taint  hardly  fair  to  call  'em 
hisn  now,  cos  the  parson  kind  o'  slicked 
off  sum  o'  the  last  varses,  but  he  told 
*  Aut  insanit,  aut  versos  facit.  —  H.  W. 


Hosee  he  did  n't  want  to  put  his  ore  in  to 
tetch  to  the  Rest  on  'em,  bein  they  wuz 
verry  well  As  thay  wuz,  and  then  Hosy 
ses  he  sed  suthin  a  nuther  about  Simplex 
Mundishes  or  sum  sech  feller,  but  I  guess 
Hosea  kind  o'  did  n't  hear  him,  for  I  never 
hearn  o'  .nobody  o'  that  name  in  this  vil- 
ladge,  and  I 've  lived  here  man  and  boy  76 
year  cum  next  tater  diggin,  and  thair  aint 
no  wheres  a  kitting  spryer  'n  I  be. 

If  you  print  'em  I  wish  you 'd  jest  let 
folks  know  who  hosy's  father  is,  cos  my 
ant  Keziah  used  to  say  it 's  nater  to  be 
curus  ses  she,  she  aint  livin  though  and 
he 's  a  likely  kind  o'  lad. 

EZEKIEL  BIGLOW. 


Thrash  away,  you  '11  hev  to  rattle 

On  them  kittle-drums  o'  yourn,  — 
'Taint  a  knowin'  kind  o'  cattle 

Thet  is  k  etched  with  mouldy  corn  ; 
Put  in  stiff,  you  fifer  feller, 

Let  folks  see  how  spry  you  be,  — 
Guess  you  '11  toot  till  you  are  yeller 

'Fore  you  git  ahold  o'  me  ! 

Thet  air  flag 's  a  leetle  rotten, 

Hope  it  aint  your  Sunday's  best ;  — 
Fact !  it  takes  a  sight  o'  cotton 

To  stuff'  out  a  soger's  chest : 
Sence  we  farmers  hev  to  pay  fer 't, 

Ef  you  must  wear  humps  like  these, 
Sposin'  you  should  try  salt  hay  fer  't, 

It  would  du  ez  slick  ez  grease. 

'T  would  n't  suit  them  Southun  fellers, 

They  're  a  dreffle  graspin'  set, 
We  must  oilers  blow  the  bellers 

Wen  they  want  their  irons  het ; 
May  be  it 's  all  right  ez  preachin', 

But  my  narves  it  kind  o'  grates, 
Wen  I  see  the  overreachin' 

0'  them  nigger-drivin'  States. 


170 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


Them  thet  rule  us,  them  slave-traders, 

Haint  they  cut  a  thunderin'  swarth 
(Helped  by  Yankee  renegaders), 

Thru  the  vartu  o'  the  North  ! 
We  begin  to  think  it 's  nater 

To  take  sarse  an*  not  be  riled ;  — 
"Who  'd  expect  to  see  a  tater 

All  on  eend  at  bein'  biled  ? 

Ez  fer  war,  I  call  it  murder,  — 

There  you  hev  it  plain  an'  flat ; 
I  don't  want  to  go  no  furder 

Than  my  Testyment  fer  that ; 
God  hez  sed  so  plump  an'  fairty, 

It 's  ez  long  ez  it  is  broad, 
An'  you 've  gut  to  git  up  airly 

Ef  you  want  to  take  in  God. 

'Taint  your  eppyletts  an'  feathers 

Make  the  thing  a  grain  more  right ; 
'Taint  afollerin'  your  bell-wethers 

Will  excuse  ye  in  His  sight ; 
Ef  you  take  a  sword  an'  dror  it, 

An'  go  stick  a  feller  thru, 
Guv'ment  aint  to  answer  for  it, 

God  '11  send  the  bill  to  you. 

Wut 's  the  use  o'  meetin'-goin' 

Every  Sabbath,  wet  or  dry, 
Ef  it 's  right  to  go  amowin' 

Feller-men  like  oats  an'  rye  ? 
I  dunno  but  wut  it 's  pooty 

Trainin'  round  in  bobtail  coats,  — 
But  it 's  curus  Christian  dooty 

This  'ere  cuttin'  folks's  throats. 

They  may  talk  o'  Freedom's  airy 

Tell  they  're  pupple  in  the  face,  — 
It  \s  a  grand  gret  cemetary 

Fer  the  barthrights  of  our  race  ; 
They  jest  want  this  Californy 

So 's  to  lug  new  slave-states  in 
To  abuse  ye,  an'  to  scorn  ye, 

An'  to  plunder  ye  like  sin. 

Aint  it  cute  to  see  a  Yankee 

Take  sech  everlastin'  pains, 
All  to  git  the  Devil's  thankee 

Helpin'  on  'em  weld  their  chains  ? 
Wy,  it  \s  jest  ez  clear  ez  figgers, 

Clear  ez  one  an'  one  make  two, 
Chaps  thet  make  black  slaves  o'  niggers 

Want  to  make  wite  slaves  o'  you. 

Tell  ye  jest  the  eend  I 've  come  to 
Arter  cipherin'  plaguy  smart, 

An'  it  makes  a  handy  sum,  tu, 
Any  gump  could  larn  by  heart ; 


Laborin'  man  an'  laborin'  woman 
Hev  one  glory  an'  one  shame. 

Ev'y  thin'  thet  's  done  inhuman 
Injers  all  on  'em  the  same. 

'Taint  by  turnin'  out  to  hack  folks 

You  're  agoin'  to  git  your  right, 
Nor  by  lookin'  down  on  black  folks 

Coz  you  're  put  upon  by  wite  ; 
Slavery  aint  o'  nary  color, 

'Taint  the  hide  thet  makes  it  wus, 
All  it  keers  fer  in  a  feller 

'S  jest  to  make  him  fill  its  pus. 

Want  to  tackle  w.e  in,  du  ye  ? 

I  expect  you  '11  hev  to  wait ; 
Wen  cold  lead  puts  daylight  thru  ye 

You  '11  begin  to  kal'late  ; 
S'pose  the  crows  wun't  fall  to  pickin' 

All  the  carkiss  from  your  bones, 
Coz  you  helped  to  give  a  lickin' 

To  them  poor  half-Spanish  drones  ? 

Jest  go  home  an'  ask  our  Nancy 

Wether  I  'd  be  sech  a  goose 
Ez  to  jine  ye,  — guess  you 'd  fancy 

The  etarnal  bung  wuz  loose  ! 
She  wants  me  fer  home  consumption, 

Let  alone  the  hay 's  to  mow,  — 
Ef  you  're  arter  folks  o'  gumption, 

You 've  a  darned  long  row  to  hoe. 

Take  them  editors  thet 's  crowin' 

Like  a  cockerel  three  months  old,  — 
Don't  ketch  any  on  'em  goin', 

Though  they  be  so  blasted  bold ; 
Aint  they  a  prime  lot  o'  fellers? 

'Fore  they  think  on 't  they  will  sprout 
(Like  a  peach  thet  's  got  the  yellers), 

With  the  meanness  bustin'  out. 

Wal,  go  'long  to  help  'em  stealin' 

Bigger  pens  to  cram  with  slaves, 
Help  the  men  thet 's  oilers  dealin* 

Insults  on  your  fathers'  graves  ; 
Help  the  strong  to  grind  the  feeble, 

Help  the  many  agin  the  few, 
Help  the  men  thet  call  your  people 

Witewashed  slaves  an'  peddlin'  crew  ! 

Massachusetts,  God  forgive  her, 

She 's  akneelin'  with  the  rest, 
She,  thet  ough'  to  ha'  clung  ferever 

In  her  grand  old  eagle-nest ; 
She  thet  ough'  to  stand  so  fearless 

Wile  the  wracks  are  round  her  hurled, 
Hoi  din'  up  a  beacon  peerless 

To  the  oppressed  of  all  the  world  ! 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


171 


Haint  they  sold  your  colored  seamen  ? 

Haint  they  made  your  env'ys  wiz  ? 
Wut  '11  make  ye  act  like  freemen  ? 

Wut  '11  git  your  dander  riz  ? 
Come,  I  '11  tell  ye  wut  I  'in  thinkiii' 

Is  our  dooty  in  this  fix, 
They 'd  ha'  done  't  ez  quick  ez  winkin' 

In  the  days  o'  seventy-six. 

Clang  the  bells  in  every  steeple, 

Call  all  true  men  to  disown 
The  tradoocers  of  our  people, 

The  enslavers  o'  their  own  ; 
Let  our  dear  old  Bay  State  proudly 

Put  the  trumpet  to  her  mouth, 
Let  her  ring  this  messidge  loudly 

In  the  ears  of  all  the  South  : — 

"I  '11  return  ye  good  fer  evil 

Much  ez  we  frail  mortils  can, 
But  I  wun't  go  help  the  Devil 

Makin'  man  the  cus  o'  man  ; 
Call  me  coward,  call  me  traiter, 

Jest  ez  suits  your  mean  idees,  — 
Here  I  stand  a  tyrant-hater, 

An'  the  friend  o'  God  an'  Peace !  " 

Ef  I 'd  my  way  I  hed  ruther 

We  should  go  to  work  an'  part,  — 
They  take  one  way,  we  take  t'  other, — 

Guess  it  would  n't  break  my  heart ; 
Man  hed  ough'  to  put  asunder 

Them  thet  God  has  noways  jined ; 
An'  I  should  n't  gretly  wonder 

Ef  there 's  thousands  o'  my  mind. 

[The  first  recruiting  sergeant  on  record  I 
conceive  to  have  been  that  in  dividual  who  is 
mentioued  in  the  Book  of  J  oh  as  going  to  and 
fro  in  the  earth,  and  walking  up  and  down  in 
it.  Bishop  Latimer  will  have  him  to  have 
been  a  bishop,  but  to  me  that  other  calling 
would  appear  more  congenial.  The  sect  of 
Cainites  is  not  yet  extinct,  who  esteemed  the 
first-born  of  Adam  to  be  the  most  worthy,  not 
only  because  of  that  privilege  of  primogeniture, 
but  inasmuch  as  he  was  able  to  overcome  and 
slay  his  younger  brother.  That  was  a  wise 
saying  of  the  famous  Marquis  Pescara  to  the 
Papal  Legate,  that  it  was  impossible  for  men  to 
serve  Mars  and  Christ  at  the  same  time.  Yet  in 
time  past  the  profession  of  arms  was  judged 
to  be  kclt  e£oxw  that  of  a  gentleman,  nor  does 
this  opinion  want  for  strenuous  upholders  even 
in  our  day.  Must  we  suppose,  then,  that  the 
profession  of  Christianity  was  only  intended 
for  losels,  or,  at  best,  to  afford  an  opening  for 
plebeian  ambition  ?  Or  shall  we  hold  with  that 
nicely  metaphysical  Pomeranian,  Captain  Vratz, 
who  was  Count  Konigsmark's  chief  instrument 
in  the  murder  of  Mr.  Thynne,  that  the  Scheme 
of  Salvation  has  been  arranged  with  an  espe- 
cial eye  to  the  necessities  of  the  upper  classes, 
and  that  "  God  would  consider  a  gentleman  and 


deal  with  him  suitably  to  the  condition  and 
profession  he  had  placed  him  in  "  ?  It  may  be 
said  of  us  all,  Exemplo  plus  quam  ratione  vivi- 
mus.  —  H.  W.j 


No.  II. 


A  LETTER 

FROM  MR.  HOSEA  BIGLOW  TO  THE  HON. 
J.  T.  BUCKINGHAM,  EDITOR  OF  THE  BOS- 
TON COURIER,  COVERING  A  LETTER  FROM 
MR.  B.  SAWIN,  PRIVATE  IN  THE  MASSA- 
CHUSETTS REGIMENT. 

[This  letter  of  Mr.  Sawin's  was  not  originally 
written  in  verse.  Mr.  Biglow,  thinking  it  pe- 
culiarly susceptible  of  metrical  adornment, 
translated  it,  so  to  speak,  into  his  own  vernac- 
ular tongue.  This  is  not  the  time  to  consider 
the  question,  whether  rhyme  be  a  mode  of  ex- 
pression natural  to  the  human  race.  If  leisure 
from  other  and  more  important  avocations  be 
granted,  I  will  handle  the  matter  more  at  large 
in  an  appendix  to  the  present  volume.  In  this 
place  I  will  barely  remark,  that  I  have  some- 
times noticed  in  the  unlanguaged  prattlings  of 
infants  a  fondness  for  alliteration,  assonance, 
and  even  rhyme,  in  which  natural  predisposi- 
tion we  may  trace  the  three  degrees  through 
which  our  Aiigle-Saxon  verse  rose  to  its  culmi- 
nation in  the  poetry  of  Pope.  I  would  not  be 
understood  as  questioning  in  these  remarks 
that  pious  theory  which  supposes  that  children, 
if  left  entirely  to  themselves,  would  naturally 
discourse  in  Hebrew.  For  this  the  authority 
of  one  experiment  is  claimed,  and  I  could,  with 
Sir  Thomas  Browne,  desire  its  establishment, 
inasmuch  as  the  acquirement  of  that  sacred 
tongue  would  thereby  be  facilitated.  I  am 
aware  that  Herodotus  states  the  conclusion  of 
Psammeticus  to  have  been  in  favor  of  a  dialect 
of  the  Phrygian.  But,  beside  the  chance  that 
a  trial  of  this  importance  would  hardly  be 
blessed  to  a  Pagan  monarch  whose  only  motive 
was  curiosity,  we  have  on  the  Hebrew  side  the 
comparatively  recent  investigation  of  James 
the  Fourth  of  Scotland.  I  will  add  to  this 
prefatory  remark,  that  Mr.  Sawin,  though  a 
native  of  Jaalam,  has  never  been  a  stated  at- 
tendant on  the  religious  exercises  of  my  con- 
gregation. I  consider  my  humble  efforts  pros- 
pered in  that  not  one  of  my  sheep  hath  ever 
indued  the  wolfs  clothing  of  war,  save  for  the 
comparatively  innocent  diversion  of  a  militia 
training.  Not  that  my  flock  are  backward  to 
undergo  the  hardships  of  defensive  warfare. 
They  serve  cheerfully  in  the  great  army  which 
fights  even  unto  death  pro  aris  et  focis,  accoutred 
with  the  spade,  the  axe,  the  plane,  the  sledge, 
the  spelling-book,  and  other  such  effectual 
weapons  against  want  and  ignorance  and  un- 
til rift.  I  have  taught  them  (under  God)  to  es- 
teem our  human  institutions  as  but  tents  of  a 
night,  to  be  stricken  whenever  Truth  puts  the 
bugle  to  her  lips  and  sounds  a  march  to  the 
heights  of  wider-viewed  intelligence  and  more 
perfect  organization.  —  H.  W.] 


172 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


Mister  Bucktnum,  the  follerin  Billet 
was  writ  hum  by  a  Yung  feller  of  our  town 
that  wuz  cussed  fool  enuff  to  goe  atrottin 
inter  Miss  ChifF  arter  a  Drum  and  fife,  it 
ain't  Nater  for  a  feller  to  let  on  that  he 's 
sick  o'  any  bizness  that  He  went  intu  off 
his  own  free  will  and  a  Cord,  but  I  rather 
cal'late  he 's  middlin  tired  o'  voluntearin 
By  this  Time.  I  bleeve  u  may  put  depen- 
dunts  on  his  statemence.  For  I  never 
heered  nothin  bad  on  him  let  Alone  his 
havin  what  Parson  Wilbur  cals  a  pong 
shong  for  eocktales,  and  he  ses  it  wuz  a 
soshiashun  of  idees  sot  him  agoin  arter  the 
Crootin  Sargient  cos  he  wore  a  cocktale 
onto  his  hat. 

his  Folks  gin  the  letter  to  me  and  i  shew 
it  to  parson  Wilbur  and  he"  ses  it  oughter 
Bee  printed,  send  It  to  mister  Buckinum, 
ses  he,  i  don't  oilers  agree  with  him,  ses 
he,  but  by  Time,*  ses  he,  I  du  like  a  feller 
that  aint  a  Feared. 

I  have  intusspussed  a  Few  refleckshuns 
hear  and  thair.  We  're  kind  o'  prest  with 
Hay  in. 

Ewers  respecfly 

HOSEA  BIGLOW. 

This  kind  o'  sogerin'  aint  a  mite  like 
our  October  trainin', 

A  chap  could  clear  right  out  from  there 
ef 't  only  looked  like  rainin', 

An*  th'  Cunnles,  tu,  could  kiver  up 
their  shappoes  with  bandanners, 

An*  send  the  insines  skootin'  to  the  bar- 
room with  their  banners 

(Fear  o'  gittin'  on  'em  spotted),  an'  a  fel- 
ler could  cry  quarter 

Ef  he  filed  away  his  ramrod  arter  tu 
much  rum  an'  water. 

Recollect  wut  fun  we  hed,  you'n'  I  an' 
Ezry  Hollis, 

Up  there  to  Waltham  plain  last  fall, 
along  o'  the  Cornwallis  ?  t 

This  sort  o'  thing  aint  jest  like  thet,  — 
I  wish  thet  I  wuz  furder,  — £ 

Nimepunce  a  day  fer  killin'  folks  comes 
kind  o'  low  fer  murder, 

*  In  relation  to  this  expression,  I  cannot  but 
think  that  Mr.  Biglow  has  been  too  hasty  in 
attributing  it  to  me.  Though  Time  be  a  com- 
paratively innocent  personage  to  swear  by,  and 
though  Longinus  in  his  discourse  IIepi"Yi//ov? 
have  commended  timely  oaths  as  not  only  a  use- 
ful but  sublime  figure  of  speech,  yet  I  have  al- 
ways kept  my  lips  free  from  that  abomination. 
Odi  profanum  vulgus,  I  hate  your  swearing  and 
hectoring  fellows.  —  H.  W. 

t  i  hait  the  Site  of  a  feller  with  a  muskit  as  I 
du  pizn  But  their  is  fun  to  a  cornwallis  I  aint 
agoin'  to  deny  it.  —  H.  B. 

X  he  means  Not  quite  so  fur  I  guess.  —  H.  B. 


(Wy  I 've  worked  out  to  slarterin'  some 
fer  Deacon  Cephas  Billins, 

An'  in  the  hardest  times  there  wuz  I 
oilers  tetched  ten  shillins,) 

There 's  sutthin'  gits  into  my  throat  thet 
makes  it  hard  to  swaller, 

It  comes  so  nateral  to  think  about  a 
hempen  collar  ; 

It 's  glory,  — but,  in  spite  o'  all  my  try- 
in'  to  git  callous, 

I  feel  a  kind  o'  in  a  cart,  aridin'  to  the 
gallus. 

But  wen  it  comes  to  bein  killed,  —  I  tell 
ye  I  felt  streaked 

The  fust  time 't  ever  I  found  out  wy 
baggonets  wuz  peaked  ; 

Here 's  how  it  wuz  :  I  started  out  to  go 
to  a  fandango, 

The  sentinul  he  ups  an'  sez,  "Thet's 
furder  'an  you  can  go." 

61  None  o'  your  sarse,"  sez  I  ;  sez  he, 
"  Stan'  back  !  "  "  Aint  you  a  bus- 
ter?" 

Sez  I,  "  I 'm  up  to  all  thet  air,  I  guess 

I 've  ben  to  muster  ; 
I  know  wy  sentinuls  air  sot ;  you  aint 

agoin'  to  eat  us  ; 
Caleb  haint  no  monopoly  to  court  the 

seenoreetas;  ■ 
My  folks  to  hum  air  full  ez  good  ez  hisn 

be,  by  golly  ! "  * 
An'  so  ez  I  wuz  goin'  by,  not  thinkin' 

wut  would  folly, 
The  everlastin'  cus  he  stuck  his  one- 
pronged  pitchfork  in  me 
An'  made  a  hole  right  thru  my  close  ez 

ef  I  wuz  an  in'my. 

Wal,  it  beats  all  how  big  I  felt  hooraw- 

in'  in  ole  Funnel 
Wen  Mister  Bolles  he  gin  the  sword  to 

our  Leftenant  Cunnle, 
(It  's  Mister  Secondary  Bolles,*  thet 

writ  the  prize  peace  essay ; 
Thet 's  why  he  did  n't  list  himself  along 

o'  us,  I  dessay,) 
An'  Rantoul,  tu,  talked  pooty  loud,  but 

don't  put  his  foot  in  it, 
Coz  human  life  's  so  sacred  thet  he  's 

principled  agin  it,  — 
Though  I  myself  can't  rightly  see  it 's 

any  wus  achokin'  on  'em, 
Than  puttin'  bullets  thru  their  lights,  or 

with  a  bagnet  pokin'  on  'em  ; 

*the  ignerant  creeter  means  Sekketary  ;  but 
he  oilers  stuck  to  his  books  like  cobbler's  wax 
to  an  ile-stone.  —  H.  B. 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


173 


How  dreffle  slick  lie  reeled  it  off  (like 
Blitz  at  our  lyceum 

Ahaulin'  ribbins  from  his  chops  so  quick 
you  skeercely  see  'em), 

About  the  Anglo-Saxon  race  (an'  saxons 
would  be  handy 

To  du  the  buryin'  down  here  upon  the 
Rio  Grandy), 

About  our  patriotic  pas  an'  our  star- 
spangled  banner, 

Our  country's  bird  alookin'  on  an'  sing- 
in'  out  hosanner, 

An'  how  he  (Mister  B.  himself)  wuz 
happy  fer  Ameriky, — 

I  felt,  ez  sister  Patience  sez,  a  leetle  mite 
histericky. 

I  felt,  I  swon,  ez  though  it  wuz  a  dreffle 
kind  o'  privilege 

Atrampin'  round  thru  Boston  streets 
among  the  gutter's  drivelage ; 

I  act'lly  thought  it  wuz  a  treat  to  hear 
a  little  drummin', 

An'  it  did  bonyfidy  seem  millanyum  wuz 
acomin' 

Wen  all  on  us  got  suits  (darned  like 
them  wore  in  the  state  prison) 

An'  every  feller  felt  ez  though  all  Mexico 
wuz  hisn.* 

This  'ere 's  about  the  meanest  place  a 
skunk  could  wal  diskiver 

(Saltillo's  Mexican,  I  b'lieve,  fer  wut  we 
call  Salt-river); 

The  sort  o'  trash  a  feller  gits  to  eat  doos 
beat  all  nater, 

I 'd  give  a  year's  pay  fer  a  smell  o'  one 
good  blue-nose  tater ; 

The  country  here  thet  Mister  Bolles  de- 
clared to  be  so  charmin' 

Throughout  is  swarmin'  with  the  most 
alarmin'  kind  o'  varmin'. 

0 

He  talked  about  delishis  f roots,  but  then 

it  wuz  a  wopper  all, 
The  holl  on  't 's  mud  an'  prickly  pears, 

with  here  an'  there  a  chapparal ; 
You  see  a  feller  peekin'  out,  an',  fust  you 

know,  a  lariat 

*  it  must  be  aloud  that  thare 's  a  streak  of 
nater  in  lovin'  sho,  but  it  sartinly  is  1  of  the 
curusest  things  in  nater  to  see  a  rispecktable 
dri  goods  dealer  (deekon  off  a  chutch  mayby) 
a  riggiu'  himself  out  in  the  Weigh  they  du  and 
struttin'  round  in  the  Reign  aspilin'  his  trowsis 
and  makin'  wet  goods  of  himself.  Ef  any  thin's 
foolisher  and  moor  dieklus  than  militerry  gloa- 
ry  it  is  milishy  gloary.  —  H.  B. 


Is  round  your  throat  an'  you  a  copse,  'fore 

you  can  say,  "  Wut  air  ye  at  ?  "* 
You  never  see  sech  darned  gret  bugs  (it 

may  not  be  irrelevant 
To  say  I  've  seen  a  scar  abacus  pihdariusi 

big  ez  a  year  old  elephant), 
The  rigiment  come  up  one  day  in  time 

to  stop  a  red  bug 
From  runnin'  off  with  Cunnle  Wright, 

—  't  wuz  jest  a  common  cimex  Ice- 
tularius. 

One  night  I  started  up  on  eend  an' 

thought  I  wuz  to  hum  agin, 
I  heern  a  horn,  thinks  I  it 's  Sol  the 

fisherman  hez  come  agin, 
His  bellowses  is  sound  enough,  — ez  I 'm 

a  livin'  creeter, 
I  felt  a  thing  go  thru  my  leg,  —  't  wuz 

nothin'  more  'n  a  skeeter  ! 
Then  there 's  the  yaller  fever,  tu,  they 

call  it  here  el  vomito,  — 
(Come,  thet  wun't  du,  you  landcrab 

there,  I  tell  ye  to  le'  go  my  toe  ! 
My  gracious  !  it 's  a  scorpion  thet 's  took 

a  shine  to  play  with  't, 
I  darsn't  skeer  the  tarnal  thing  fer  fear 

he 'd  run  away  with 't.) 
Afore  I  come  away  from  hum  I  hed  a 

strong  persuasion 
Thet  Mexicans  worn't  human  beans,  £ 

—  an  ourang  outang  nation, 

A  sort  o'  folks  a  chap  could  kill  an' 

never  dream  on 't  arter, 
No  more  'n  a  feller 'd  dream  o'  pigs  thet 

he  hed  hed  to  slarter ; 
I 'd  an  idee  thet  they  were  built  arter 

the  darkie  fashion  all, 
An'  kickin'  colored  folks  about,  you 

know,  's  a  kind  o'  national  ; 
But  wen  I  jined  I  wornt  so  wise  ez  thet 

air  queen  o'  Sheby, 
Fer,  come  to  look  at  'em,  they  aint 

much  diff'rent  from  wut  we  be, 
An'  here  we  air  ascrougin'  'em  out  o'  thir 

own  dominions, 

*  these  fellers  are  verry  proppilly  called  Rank 
Heroes,  and  the  more  tha  kill  the  ranker  and 
more  Herowick  tha  bekum.  —  H.  B. 

t  it  wuz  "  tumblebug"  as  he  Writ  it,  but  the 
parson  put  the  Latten  instid.  i  sed  tother  maid 
better  meeter,  but  he  said  tha  was  eddykated 
peepl  to  Boston  and  tha  would  n't  stan'  it  no 
how.  idnow  as  tha  wood  and  idnow  as  tha 
wood.  —  H.  B. 

X  he  means  human  beins,  that 's  wut  he 
means  i  spose  he  kinder  thought  tha  wuz 
human  beans  ware  the  Xisle  Poles  comes  from. 
—  H  B. 


174 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


Ashelterin'  'em,  ez  Caleb  sez,  under  our 

eagle's  pinions, 
Wich  means  to  take  a  feller  up  jest  by 

the  slack  o'  's  trowsis 
An'  walk  him  Spanish  clean  right  out  o' 

all  his  homes  an'  houses ; 
Wal,  it  doos  seem  a  curus  way,  but  then 

hooravv  fer  Jackson  ! 
It  must  be  right,  fer  Caleb  sez  it 's  reg'- 

lar  Anglo-saxon. 
The  Mex'cans  don't  light  fair,  they  say, 

they  piz'n  all  the  water, 
An'  du  amazin'  lots  o'  things  thet  is  n't 

wut  they  ough'  to  ; 
Bein'  they  haint  no  lead,  they  make 

their  bullets  out  o'  copper 
An'  shoot  the  darned  things  at  us,  tu, 

wich  Caleb  sez  aint  proper ; 
He  sez  they 'd  ough'  to  stan'  right  up 

an'  let  us  pop  em  fairly 
(Guess  wen  he  ketches  'em  at  thet  he  '11 

hev  to  git  up  airly), 
Thet  our  nation 's  bigger  'n  theirn  an' 

so  its  rights  air  bigger, 
An'  thet  it 's  all  to  make  'em  free  thet 

we  air  pullin'  trigger, 
Thet  Anglo  Saxondom's  idee 's  abreakin' 

'em  to  pieces, 
An'  thet  idee 's  thet  every  man  doos  jest 

wut  he  damn  pleases ; 
Ef  I  don't  make  his  meanin'  clear,  per- 
haps in  some  respex  I  can, 
I  know  thet  "every  man"  don't  mean 

a  nigger  or  a  Mexican  ; 
An'  there 's  another  thing  I  know,  an' 

thet  is,  ef  these  creeturs, 
Thet  stick  an  Anglosaxon  mask  onto 

State-prison  feeturs, 
Should  come  to  Jaalam  Centre  fer  to 

argify  an'  spout  on 't, 
The  gals  'ould  count  the  silver  spoons 

the  minn it  they  cleared  out  on  't. 

This  goin'  ware  glory  waits  ye  haint  one 

agreeable  feetur, 
An'  ef  it  worn't  fer  wakin'  snakes,  1  'd 

home  agin  short  meter  ; 
0,  would  n't  I  be  off,  quick  time,  ef 't 

worn't  thet  I  wuz  sart.in 
They 'd  let  the  daylight  into  me  to  pay 

me  fer  desartin  ! 
I  don't  approve  o'  tellin'  tales,  but  jest 

to  you  I  may  state 
Our  ossifers  aint  wut  they  wuz  afore 

they  left  the  Bay-state ; 
Then  it  wuz  * *  Mister  Sawin,  sir,  you're 

middlin'  well  now,  be  ye  ? 


Step  up  an'  take  a  nipper,  sir  ;  I  'm 

dreffle  glad  to  see  ye  "  ; 
But  now  it  's  "  Ware  's  my  eppylet  ? 

here,  Sawin,  step  an'  fetch  it! 
An'  mind  your  eye,  be  thund'  rin'  spry, 

or,  damn  ye,  you  shall  ketch  it  !  " 
Wal,  ez  the  Doctor  sez,  some  pork  will 

bile  so,  but  by  mighty, 
Ef  I  hed  some  on  'em  to  hum,  I 'd  give 

'em  linkum  vity, 
1  'd  play  the  rogue's  march  on  their 

hides  an'  other  music  follerin'  — 
But  1  must  close  my  letter  here,  fer  one 

on  'em  's  ahollerin', 
These  Anglosaxon  ossifers,  —  wal,  taint 

no  use  ajawin', 
I 'm  safe  enlisted  fer  the  war, 
Yourn, 

BIRDOFREDOM  SAWIN. 

[Those  have  not  been  wanting  (as,  indeed, 
when  hath  Satan  been  to  seek  for  attorneys  ?) 
who  have  maintained  that  our  late  inroad  upon 
Mexico  was  undertaken,  not  so  much  for  the 
avenging  of  any  national  quarrel,  as  for  the 
spreading  of  free  institutions  and  of  Protest- 
antism. Capita  vix  duabus  Anticyris  medenda  I 
Verily  I  admire  that  no  pious  sergeant  among 
these  new  Crusaders  beheld  Martin  Luther  rid- 
ing at  the  front  of  the  host  upon  a  tamed  pon- 
tifical bull,  as,  in  that  former  invasion  of 
Mexico,  the  zealous  Gomara  (spawn  though  he 
were  of  the  Scarlet  Woman)  was  favored  with 
a  vision  of  St.  James  of  Compostella,  skewering 
the  infidels  upon  his  apostolical  lance.  We 
read,  also,  that  Richard  of  the  lion  heart,  hav- 
ing gone  to  Palestine  on  a  similar  errand  of 
mercy,  was  divinely  encouraged  to  cut  the 
throats  of  such  Paynims  as  refused  to  swallow 
the  bread  of  life  (doubtless  that  they  might  be 
thereafter  incapacitated  for  swallowing  the 
filthy  gobbets  of  Mahound)  by  angels  of  heav- 
en, who  cried  to  the  king  and  his  knights,  — 
Seigneurs,  tuez !  tuez  !  providentially  using  the 
French  tongue,  as  being  the  only  one  under- 
stood by  their  auditors.  This  would  argue  for 
the  pantoglottisin  of  these  celestial  intelligences, 
while,  on  the  other  hand,  the  Devil,  teste  Cot- 
ton Mather,  is  unversed  in  certain  of  the  Indian 
dialects.  Yet  must  he  be  a  semeiologist  the 
most  expert,  making  himself  intelligible  to 
every  people  and  kindred  by  signs  ;  no  other 
discourse,  indeed,  being  needful,  than  such  as 
the  mackerel-fisher  holds  with  his  finned  quar- 
ry, who,  if  other  bait  be  wanting,  can  by  a  bare 
bit  of  white  rag  at  the  end  of  a  string  captivate 
those  foolish  fishes.  Such  piscatorial  oratory 
is  Satan  cunning  in.  Before  one  he  trails  a  hat 
and  feather,  or  a  bare  feather  without  a  hat ; 
before  another,  a  Presidential  chair  or  a  tide- 
waiter's  stool,  or  a  pulpit  in  the  city,  no  matter 
what.  To  us,  dangling  there  over  our  heads, 
they  seem  junkets  dropped  out  of  the  seventh 
heaven,  sops  dipped  in  nectar,  but,  once  in  our 
mouths,  they  are  all  one,  bits  of  fuzzy  cotton. 

This,  however,  by  the  way.  It  is  time  now 
revocarc  gradum.  While  so  many  miracles  of 
this  sort,  vouched  by  eyewitnesses,  have  eu- 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


175 


couraged  the  arms  of  Papists,  not  to  speak  of 
Eehetla-.us  at  Marathon  and  those  Dioscuri 
(whom  we  must  conclude  imps  of  the  pit)  who 
sundry  times  captained  the  pagan  Roman  sol- 
diery, it  is  strange  that  our  first  American  cru- 
sade was  not  in  some  such  wise  also  signalized. 
Yet  it  is  said  that  the  Lord  hath  manifestly 
prospered  our  armies.  This  opens  the  ques- 
tion, whether,  when  our  hands  are  strength- 
ened to  make  great  slaughter  of  our  enemies, 
it  be  absolutely  and  demonstratively  certain 
that  this  might  is  added  to  us  from  above,  or 
whether  some  Potentate  from  an  opposite 
quarter  may  not  have  a  linger  in  it,  as  there  are 
few  pies  into  which  his  meddling  digits  are  not 
thrust.  Would  the  Sanctifier  and  Setter-apart 
of  the  seventh  day  have  assisted  in  a  victory 
gained  on  the  Sabbath,  as  was  one  in  the  late 
war?  Or  has  that  day  become  less  an  object 
of  his  especial  care  since  the  year  1697,  when 
so  mani  est  a  providence  occurred  to  Mr.  Wil- 
liam Trowbridge,  in  answer  to  whose  prayers, 
when  he  and  all  on  shipboard  with  him  were 
starving,  a  dolphin  was  sent  daily,  "which  was 
enough  to  serve  'em  ;  only  on  Saturdays  they 
still  catched  a  couple,  and  on  the  Lord's  Days 
they  could  catch  none  at  all"?  Haply  they 
might  have  been  permitted,  by  way  of  mortifi- 
cation, to  take  some  few  sculpins  (those  banes 
of  the  salt-water  angler),  which  unseemly  fish 
would,  moreover,  have  conveyed  to  them  a 
symbolical  reproof  for  their  breach  of  the  day, 
being  known  in  the  rude  dialect  of  our  mari- 
ners as  Cape  Cod  Clergymen. 

It  has  been  a  refreshment  to  many  nice  con- 
sciences to  know  that  our  Chief  Magistrate 
would  not  regard  with  eyes  of  approval  the  (by 
many  esteemed)  sinful  pastime  of  dancing,  and 
I  own  myself  to  be  so  far  of  that  mind,  that  I 
could  not  but  set  my  face  against  this  Mexican 
Polka,  though  danced  to  the  Presidential  pip- 
ing with  a  Gubernatorial  second.  If  ever  the 
country  should  be  seized  with  another  such 
mania  de  propaganda  jkle,  I  think  it  would  be 
wise  to  fill  our  bombshells  with  alternate  cop- 
ies of  the  Cambridge  Platform  and  the  Thirty- 
nine  Articles,  which  would  produce  a  mixture 
of  the  highest  explosive  power,  and  to  wrap 
every  one  of  our  cannon-balls  in  a  leaf  of  the 
New  Testament,  the  reading  of  which  is  denied 
to  those  who  sit  in  the  darkness  of  Popery. 
Those  iron  evangelists  would  thus  be  able  to 
disseminate  vital  religion  and  Gospel  truth  in 
quarters  inaccessible  to  the  ordinary  mission- 
ary. I  have  seen  lads,  unimpregnate  with  the 
more  sublimated  punctiliousness  of  Walton, 
secure  pickerel,  taking  their  unwary  siesta  be- 
neath the  lily-pads  too  nigh  the  surface,  with 
a  gun  and  small  shot.  Why  not,  then,  since 
gunpowder  was  unknown  in  the  time  of  the 
Apostles  (not  to  enter  here  upon  the  question 
whether  it  were  discovered  before  that  period 
by  the  Chinese),  suit  our  metaphor  to  the  age 
in  which  we  live,  and  say  shooters  as  well  as 
Jishers  of  men  ? 

I  do  much  fear  that  we  shall  be  seized  now 
and  then  with  a  Protestant  fervor,  as  long  as 
we  have  neighbor  Naboths  whose  wallowings 
in  Papistical  mire  excite  our  horror  m  exact 
proportion  to  the  size  and  desirableness  of  their 
vineyards.  Yet  I  rejoice  that  some  earnest 
Protestants  have  been  made  by  this  war,  —  I 
mean  those  who  protested  against  it.  Fewer 
they  were  than  I  could  wish,  for  one  might  im- 


agine America  to  have  been  colonized  by  a 
tribe  of  those  nondescript  African  animals  the 
Aye-Ayes,  so  difficult  a  word  is  No  to  us  all. 
There  is  some  malformation  or  defect  of  the 
vocal  organs,  which  either  prevents  our  utter- 
ing it  at  all,  or  gives  it  so  thick  a  pronunciation 
as  to  be  unintelligible.  A  mouth  filled  with 
the  national  pudding,  or  watering  in  expecta- 
tion thereof,  is  wholly  incompetent  to  this  re- 
fractory monosyllable.  An  abject  and  herpetic 
Public  Opinion  is  the  Pope,  the  Anti-Christ, 
for  us  to  protest  against  e  corde  oordium.  And 
by  what  College  of  Cardinals  is  this  our  God's- 
vicar,  our  binder  and  looser,  elected?  Very 
like,  by  the  sacred  conclave  of  Tag,  Rag,  and 
Bobtail,  in  the  gracious  atmosphere  of  the 
grog-shop.  Yet  it  is  of  this  that  we  must  all 
be  puppets.  This  thumps  the  pulpit-cushion, 
this  guides  the  editor's  pen,  this  wags  the  sen- 
ator's tongue.  This  decides  what  Scriptures 
are  canonical,  and  shuffles  Christ  away  into 
the  Apocrypha.  According  to  that  sentence 
fathered  upon  Solon,  Outw  Srjfxoaiov  Kanbv 
epxcTai  olicaS'  €/cocrTa>.  This  unclean  spirit  is 
skilful  to  assume  various  shapes.  I  have  known 
it  to  enter  my  own  study  and  nudge  my  elbow 
of  a  Saturday,  under  the  semblance  of  a  wealthy 
member  of  my  congregation.  It  were  a  great 
blessing,  if  every  particular  of  what  in  the  sum 
we  call  popular  sentiment  could  carry  about 
the  name  of  its  manufacturer  stamped  legibly 
upon  it.  I  gave  a  stab  under  the  tiflh  rib  to 
that  pestilent  fallacy,  —  "  Our  country,  right 
or  wrong,"  —  by  tracing  its  original  to  a  speech 
of  Ensign  Cilley  at  a  dinner  of  the  Bungtown 
Fencibles.  —  H.  W.] 


No.  III. 


WHAT  MR.  ROBINSON  THINKS. 

fA  few  remarks  on  the  following  verses  will 
not  be  out  of  place.  The  satire  in  them  was 
not  meant  to  have  any  personal,  but  only  a 
general,  application.  Of  the  gentleman  upon 
whose  letter  they  were  intended  as  a  commen- 
tary Mr.  Biglow  had  never  heard,  till  he  saw  the 
letter  itself.  The  position  of  the  satirist  is 
oftentimes  one  which  he  would  not  have  chos- 
en, had  the  election  been  left  to  himself.  In 
attacking  bad  principles,  he  is  obliged  to  select 
some  individual  who  has  made  himself  their 
exponent,  and  in  whom  they  are  impersonate, 
to  the  end  that  what  he  says  may  not,  through 
ambiguity,  be  dissipated  tenues  in  auras.  For 
what  says  Seneca?  Longum  iter  per  prcecepta1 
breve  et  efficace,  per  exem.pla.  A  bad  princiyde  is 
comparatively  harmless  while  it  continues  to 
be  an  abstraction,  nor  can  the  general  mind 
comprehend  it  fully  till  it  is  printed  in  that 
large  type  which  all  men  can  read  at  sight, 
namely,  the  life  and  character,  the  sayings  and 
doings,  of  imrticular  persons.  It  is  one  of  the 
cunningest  fetches  of  Satan,  that  he  never  ex- 
poses himself  directly  to  our  arrows,  but,  still 
dodging  behind  this  neighbor  or  that  acquaint- 
ance, compels  us  to  wound  him  through  them, 
if  at  all.  He  holds  our  affections  as  hostages, 
the  while  he  patches  up  a  truce  with  our  con- 
science. 


176 


THE  BIGLOW  TArERS, 


Meanwhile,  let  us  not  forget  that  the  aim  of 
the  true  satirist  is  not  to  be  severe  upon  per- 
sons, but  only  upon  falsehood,  and.  as  Truth 
and  Falsehood  start  from  the  same  point,  and 
sometimes  even  go  along  together  for  a  little 
way,  his  business  is  to  follow  the  path  of  the 
latter  after  it  diverges,  and  to  show  her  floun- 
dering in  the  bog  at  the  end  of  it  Truth  is 
quite  beyond  the  reach  of  satire.  There  is  so 
brave  a  simplicity  in  her.  that  she  can  no  more 
be  made  ridiculous  than  an  oak  or  a  pine.  The 
danger  of  the  satirist  is.  that  continual  use  may 
deaden  his  sensibility  to  the  force  of  language. 
He  becomes  more  and  more  liable  to  strike 
harder  than  he  knows  or  intends.  He  may  be  j 
careful  to  put  on  his  boxing-gloves,  and' yet  j 
forget  That,  the  older  they  grow,  the  more 
plainly  may  the  knuckles  inside  be  felt.  More- 
over, in  the  heat  of  contest,  the  eye  is  insensi-  j 
hly  drawn  to  the  crown  of  victory,  whose  taw-  , 
dry  tinsel  glitters  through  that  dust  of  the  ring  1 
which  obscures  Truth's  wreath  of  simple  leaves. 
I  have  sometimes  thought  that  my  young 
friend,  Mr.  Biglow.  needed  a  monitory' hand 
laid  on  his  arm, — aliquid  sufflaminandus  emt.  \ 
I  have  never  thought  it  good  husbandry  to 
water  the  tender  plants  of  reform  with  aqua  j 
forth,  yet.  where  so  much  is  to  do  in  the  beds, 
he  were  a  sorry  gardener  who  should  wage  a 
whole  days  war  with  an  iron  scuffle  on  those 
ill  weeds' that  make  the  garden-walks  of  life 
unsightly,  when  a  sprinkle  of  Attic  salt  will 
wither  them  up.  Est  ars  etiam  malcdiccndi, 
says  Sealiger.  and  truly  it  is  a  hard  thing  to 
say  where  the  graceful  gentleness  of  the  lamb 
merges  in  downright  shecpishness.  We  may 
conclude  with  worthy  and  wise  Dr.  Fuller,  that 
"one  may  be  a  lamb  in  private  wrongs,  but  in 
hearing  general  affronts  to  goodness  they  are 
asses  which  are  not  lions."  —  H.  W.] 

Guyexer  B.  is  a  sensible  man  : 

He  stavs  to  his  home  an'  looks  alter 
his  folks  ; 

He  draws  his  falter  ez  straight  ez  he  can. 
An'  into  nobody's  tater-patch  pokes  ; 
But  John  P. 
Robinson  he 
Sez  he  want  vote  fer  Gnvener  B. 

My  !  aint  it  terrible  !  Wot  shall  we  du  ! 
We  can't  never  choose  him  o'  course. 

—  thet 's  Hat  ; 
Guess  we  shall  hey  to  come  round,  (don't 

you  1) 

An'  go  in  fer  thunder  an'  guns,  an'  all 
that ; 
Fer  John  P. 
Robinson  he 
Sez  he  want  vote  fer  Guvener  B. 

Gineral  C.  is  a  dreffle  smart  man : 

He 's  ben  on  all  sides  thet  give  places 
or  pelf ; 

But  consistency  still  wuz  a  part  of  his 
plan,  — 


He 's  ben  true  to  one  party,  —  an'  thet 
is  himself ;  — 
So  John  P. 
Robinson  he 
Sez  he  shall  vote  fer  Gineral  C. 

Gineral  C.  he  goes  in  fer  the  war  : 
He  don't  rally  principle  more  'n  an 
old  cud  ; 

Wut  did  God  make  us  ravtional  ereetuis 
fer, 

But  glory  an'  gunpowder,  plunder  an' 
blood  ! 
So  John  P. 
Robinson  he 
Sez  he  shall  vote  fer  Gineral  C. 

We  were  gittin'  on  nicely  up  here  to  our 
village, 

With  good  old  idees  o'  wut 's  right  an' 
wut  aint, 

We  kind  o'  thought  Christ  went  agin 
war  an'  pillage. 
An'  thet  eppyletts  worn't  the  best 
mark  of  a  saint  ; 
But  John  P. 
Robinson  he 
Sez  this  kind  o'  thing 's  an  exploded 
idee. 

The  side  of  our  country  must  oilers  be 
took. 

An'  Presidunt  Polk,  you  know,  he  is 
our  country. 
An'  the  angel  thet  writes  all  our  sins  in 
a  book 

Puts  the  debit  to  him,  an'  to  us  the 
jwr  contru  ; 
An'  John  P. 
Robinson  he 
Sez  this  is  his  view  o'  the  thing  to 
a  T. 

Parson  Wilbur  he  calls  all  these  argi- 
munts  lies  ; 
Sez  they  're  nothin1  on  airrh  but  jest 
fee,  fair,  fum: 

An'  thet  all  this  big  talk  of  our  des- 
tinies 

Is  half  on  it  ign'anee,  an' t'  other  half 
rum  : 
But  John  P. 
Robinson  he 
Sez  it  aint  no  sech  thing  :  an',  of 
course,  so  must  we. 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


177 


Parson  Wilbur  sez  he  never  heerd  in  his 
life 

Thet  th'  Apostles  rigged  out  in  their 
swaller-tail  coats, 
An'  marched  round  in  front  of  a  drum 
an'  a  fife, 

To  git  some  on  'em  office,  an'  some  on 
'em  votes  ; 
But  John  P. 
Robinson  he 
Sez  tfiey  did  n't  know  everythin' 
down  in  Judee. 

"Wal,  it 's  a  marcy  we 've  gut  folks  to 
tell  us 

The  rights  an'  the  wrongs  o'  these 
matters,  I  vow, — 
God  sends  country  lawyers,  an'  other 
wise  fellers, 
To  start  the  world's  team  wen  it  gits  in 
a  slough  ; 
Fer  John  P. 
Robinson  he 
Sez  the  world  '11  go  right,  ef  he  hol- 
lers out  Gee  ! 


[The  attentive  reader  will  doubtless  have 
perceived  in  the  foregoing  poem  an  allusion  to 
that  pernicious  sentiment,  —  "  Our  country, 
right  or  wrong. "  It  is  an  abuse  of  language  to 
call  a  certaiu  portion  of  land,  much  more,  cer- 
tain personages,  elevated  for  the  time  being  to 
high  station,  our  country.  I  would  not  sever 
nor  loosen  a  single  one  of  those  ties  by  which 
we  are  united  to  the  spot  of  our  birth,  nor  min- 
ish  by  a  tittle  the  respect  due  to  the  Magis- 
trate. I  love  our  own  Bay  State  too  well  to  do 
the  one,  and  as  for  the  other,  I  have  myself  for 
nigh  forty  years  exercised,  however  unworthily, 
the  function  of  Justice  of  the  Peace,  having 
been  called  thereto  by  the  unsolicited  kindness 
of  that  most  excellent  man  and  upright  patriot, 
Caleb  Strong.  Patrice  fnmus  igne  alieno  lucu- 
lentior  is  best  qualified  with  this,  —  Ubi  liber- 
tas,  ibi  patria.  We  are  inhabitants  of  two 
worlds,  and  owe  a  double,  but  not  a  divided 
allegiance.  In  virtue  of  our  clay,  this  little  ball 
of  earth  exacts  a  certain  loyalty  of  us,  while,  in 
our  capacity  as  spirits,  we  are  admitted  citizens 
of  an  invisible  and  holier  fatherland.  There  is 
a  patriotism  of  the  soul  whose  claim  absolves 
us  from  our  other  and  terrene  fealty.  Our  true 
country  is  that  ideal  realm  which  we  represent 
to  ourselves  under  the  names  of  religion,  duty, 
and  the  like.  Our  terrestrial  organizations  are 
but  far-off  approaches  to  so  fair  a  model,  and 
all  they  are  verily  traitors  who  resist  not  any 
attempt  to  divert  them  from  this  their  original 
intendment.  When,  therefore,  one  would  have 
us  to  fling  up  our  caps  and  shout  with  the  mul- 
titude, —  "  Our  country,  however  bounded  ! "  he 
demands  of  us  that  we  sacrifice  the  larger  to  the 
less,  the  higher  to  the  lower,  and  that  we  yield 
to  the  imaginary  claims  of  a  few  acres  of  soil 
our  duty  and  privilege  as  liegemen  of  Truth. 


Our  true  country  is  bounded  on  the  north  and 
the  south,  on  the  east  and  the  west,  by  Justice, 
and  when  she  oversteps  that  invisible  boundary- 
line  by  so  much  as  a  hair's-breadth,  she  ceases 
to  be  our  mother,  and  chooses  rather  to  be 
looked  upon  quasi  noverca.  That  is  a  hard 
choice  when  our  earthly  love  of  country  calls 
upon  us  to  tread  one  path  and  our  duty  points 
us  to  another.  We  must  make  as  noble  and 
becoming  an  election  as  did  Penelope  between 
Icarius  and  Ulysses.  Veiling  our  faces,  we 
must  take  silently  the  hand  of  Duty  to  follow 
her. 

Shortly  after  the  publication  of  the  foregoing 
poem,  there  appeared  some  comments  upon  it 
in  one  of  the  public  prints  which  seemed  to 
call  for  animadversion.  I  accordingly  addressed 
to  Mr.  Buckingham,  of  the  Boston  Courier,  the 
following  letter. 


"Jaalam,  November  4,  1847. 
"  To  the  Editor  of  the  Courier: 

"  Respected  Sir,  —  Calling  at  the  post-office 
this  morning,  our  worthy  and  efficient  postmas- 
ter offered  for  my  perusal  a  paragraph  in  the 
Boston  Morning  Post  of  the  3d  instant,  wherein 
certain  effusions  of  the  pastoral  muse  are  at- 
tributed to  the  pen  of  Mr.  James  Russell  Low- 
ell. For  aught  I  know  or  can  affirm  to  the 
contrary,  this  Mr.  Lowell  may  be  a  very  de- 
serving person  and  a  youth  of  parts  (though  I 
have  seen  verses  of  his  which  I  could  never 
rightly  understand) ;  and  if  he  be  such,  he,  I 
am  certain,  as  well  as  I,  would  be  free  from  any 
proclivity  to  appropriate  to  himself  whatever 
of  credit  (or  discredit)  may  honestly  belong  to 
another.  I  am  confident,  that,  in  penning 
these  few  lines,  I  am  only  forestalling  a  dis- 
claimer from  that  young  gentleman,  whose 
silence  hitherto,  when  rumor  pointed  to  him- 
ward,  has  excited  in  my  bosom  mingled  emo- 
tions of  sorrow  and  surprise.  Well  may  my 
young  parishioner,  Mr.  Biglow,  exclaim  with 
the  poet, 

'  Sic  vos  non  vobis,'  &c. ; 

though,  in  saying  this,  I  would  not  convey  the 
impression  that  he  is  a  proficient  in  the  Latin 
tongue,  —  the  tongue,  I  might  add,  of  a  Horace 
and  a  Tully. 

"Mr.  B.  does  not  employ  his  pen,  I  can 
safely  say,  for  any  lucre  of  worldly  gain,  or  to 
be  exalted  by  the  carnal  plaudits  of  men,  digito 
monstrari,  &c.  He  does  not  wait  upon  Provi- 
dence for  mercies,  and  in  his  heart  mean  merges. 
But  I  should  esteem  myself  as  verily  deficient 
in  my  duty  (who  am  his  friend  and  in  some  un- 
worthy sort  his  spiritual  fidus  Achates,  &c),  if 
I  did  not  step  forward  to  claim  for  him  what- 
ever measure  of  applause  might  be  assigned  to 
him  by  the  judicious. 

"  If  this  were  a  fitting  occasion,  I  might  ven- 
ture here  a  brief  dissertation  touching  the 
manner  and  kind  of  my  young  friend's  poetry. 
But  I  dubitate  whether  this  abstruser  sort  of 
speculation  (though  enlivened  by  some  apposite  . 
instances  from  Aristophanes)  would  sufficiently 
interest  your  oppidan  readers.  As  regards  their 
satirical  tone,  and  their  plainness  of  speech,  I 
*vill  only  say,  that,  in  my  pastoral  experience, 
I  have  found  that  the  Arch-Enemy  loves  noth- 
ing better  than  to  be  treated  as  a  religious, 


178 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


moral,  and  intellectual  being,  and  that  there  is 

no  ajxigc  Hatha  nas  so  ]K»tent  as  ridic  ule.  But 
it  is  ■  kind  of  weapon  that  must  have  a  button 
of  good-nature  on  the  point  of  it 

"  The  productions  of  Mr.  B.  have  been  stig- 
matized in  some  quarters  as  unpatriotic  ;  but 
I  can  vouch  that  he  loves  his  native  soil  with 
that  hearty,  though  discriminatiTig.  attachment 
which  springs  from  an  intimate  social  inter- 
course of  many  years'  standing.  In  the  plough- 
ing .season,  no  one  has  a  deeper  share  in  the 
well-being  of  the  country  than  he.  If  Dean 
Swift  were  right  in  saying  that  he  who  makes 
two  blades  of  grass  grow  where  one  grew  before 
confers  a  greater  benefit  on  the  state  than  he 
who  taketh  a  city,  Mr.  B.  might  exhibit  a  fairer 
claim  to  the  Presidency  than  General  Scott 
himself.  I  think  that  some  of  those  disinter- 
ested lovers  of  the  hard-handed  democracy, 
whose  fingers  have  never  touched  anything 
rougher  than  the  dollars  of  our  common  coun- 
try, would  hesitate  to  compare  palms  with  him. 
It  would  do  your  heart  good,  respected  Sir,  to 
see  that  young  man  mow.  He  cuts  a  cleaner 
and  wider  swath  than  any  in  this  town. 

"  But  it  is  time  for  me  to  be  at  my  Post  It 
is  very  clear  that  my  young  friend's  shot  has 
struck  the  lintel,  for  the  Post  is  shaken  (Amos 
is  1).  The  editor  of  that  paper  is  a  strenuous 
advocate  of  the  Mexican  war,  and  a  colonel,  as 
I  am  given  to  understand.  I  presume,  that, 
being  necessarily  absent  in  Mexico,  he  has  left 
his  journal  in  some  less  judicious  hands.  At 
any  rate,  the  Post  has  been  too  swift  on  this 
occasion.  It  could  hardly  have  cited  a  more 
incontrovertible  line  from  any  poem  than  that 
which  it  has  selected  for  animadversion,  name- 
ly,- 

•We  kind  o'  thought  Christ  went  arin  war  an'  pil- 
lage. 

"  If  the  Post  maintains  the  converse  of  this 
proposition,  it  can  hardly  be  considered  as  a 
safe  guide-post  for  the  moral  and  religious  por- 
tions of  its  party,  however  many  other  excel- 
lent qualities  of  a  post  it  may  l»e  blessed  with. 
There  is  a  sign  in  Ix>ndon  on  which  is  painted, 
—  4  The  Green  Man.'  It  would  do  very  well  as 
a  portrait  of  any  individual  who  would  support 
so  unscriptural  a  thesis.  As  regards  the  lan- 
guage of  the  line  in  Question,  I  sun  fold  to  say 
that  He  who  readeth  the  hearu  of  men  will  not 
account  any  dialect  unseemly  which  conveys  a 
sound  and  pious  sentiment  I  could  wish  that 
such  sentiments  were  more  common,  however 
uncouthly  expressed.  Saint  Ambrose  affirms, 
that  vcrtias  a  qnocnnqne  (why  not.  then,  quo- 
modocuiique  f)  dicatnr,  a  spiritu  saneto  est.  Di- 
gest also  this  of  Baxter  :  'The  plainest  words 
are  the  most  profitable  oratory  in  the  weightiest 
matters.' 

"  When  the  paragraph  in  question  was  shown 
to  Mr.  Biglow,  the  only  part  of  it  which  seemed 
to  give  him  any  dissatisfaction  was  that  which 
classed  him  with  the  Whig  party.  He  says, 
that,  if  resolutions  are  a  nourishing  kind* of 
diet,  that  party  must  be  in  a  very  hearty  and 
nourishing  condition  ;  for  that  they  have  qui-  | 
etly  eaten  more  good  ones  of  their  own  baking 
than  he  could  have  conceived  to  be  possible  ^ 
without  repletion.  He  has  been  for  some  years 
past  (I  regret  to  say)  an  ardent  opponent  of 
those  sound  doctrines  of  protective  policy  which 


form  so  prominent  a  portion  of  the  creed  of  that 

l«arty.  I  confess,  that,  in  some  discussions 
which  I  have  had  with  him  on  this  point  in  my 
study,  he  has  displayed  a  vein  of  obstinacy 
which  I  had  not  hitherto  detected  in  his  com- 
position. He  is  also  (horrtfco  rtwfertn$)  infected 
in  no  small  measure  with  the  peculiar  notions 
of  a  print  called  the  Liberator,  whose  heresies 
I  take  every  proper  opportunity  of  comliating, 
and  of  which,  I  thank  God,  I  have  never  read  a 
single  line. 

"  I  did  uot  see  Mr.  B.'s  verses  until  they  ap- 
peared in  print,  and  there  is  certainly  one  thing 
in  them  which  I  consider  highly  improper.  I 
allude  to  the  personal  references  to  myself  by 
name.  To  confer  notoriety  on  an  humble  indi- 
vidual who  is  laboring  quietly  in  his  vocation, 
and  who  keeps  his  cloth  as  free  as  he  can  from 
the  dust  of  the  political  arena  (though  txr  mini 
si  Mo>i  cixiiigdi.sat>cr<o\  is  no  doubt  an  indeco- 
rum. The  sentiments  which  he  attributes  to 
me  I  will  not  deny  to  be  mine  They  were  em- 
bodied, though  in  a  different  form*  in  a  dis- 
course preached  upon  the  last  day  of  public 
fasting,  and  were  acceptable  to  my  entire  peo- 
ple (of  whatever  political  views),  except  the 
postmaster,  who  dissented  ex  oJUcio.  I  observe 
that  you  sometimes  devote  a  portion  of  your 
paper  to  a  religious  summary.  I  should  be  well 
1 'leased  to  furnish  a  copy  of  my  discourse  for 
insertion  in  this  depart  men  t  of  your  instructive 
journal.  By  omitting  the  advertisements,  it 
might  easily  he  got  within  the  limits  of  a  single 
number,  and  I  venture  to  insure  you  the  sale 
of  some  scores  of  copies  in  this  town.  I  will 
cheerfully  render  myself  responsible  for  ten. 
It  might  possibly  be  advantageous  to  issue  it 
as  an  rrtra  But  perhaps  you  will  not  esteem 
it  an  object  wad  I  will  not  press  it  My  offer 
does  not  spring  from  any  weak  desire  of  seeing 
my  name  in  print;  for  i  can  enjoy  this  satis- 
faction at  any  time  by  turning  to  the  Triennial 
Catalogue  of  the  University,  where  it  also  jms- 
sesses  that  added  emphasis  of  Italics  with  which 
those  of  my  calling  are  distinguished. 

M  I  would  simply  add.  that  I  continue  to  fit 
ingenuous  youth  for  college,  and  that  I  have 
two  spacious  and  airy  sleeping  apartments  at 
this  moment  unoccupied-  Ingrnnas  diV/urissr, 
fl(C  Terms,  which  van-  according  to  the  cir- 
cumstances of  the  parents,  may  be  known  on 
application  to  me  by  letter,  post-paid.  In  all 
cases  the  lad  will  be  expected  to  fetch  his  own 
towels.  This  rule.  Mrs.  W.  desires  me  to  add, 
has  no  exceptions. 

"  Respectfully,  your  obedient  servant 
"  HOMER  WILBUR.  A.  M. 

"P.  S.  Perhaps  the  last  paragraph  may  look 
like  an  attempt  to  obtain  the  insertion  of  my 
circular  gratuitously.  If  it  should  apj^ear  to 
you  in  that  light.  I  desire  that  you  would  erase 
it.  or  charge  for  it  at  the  usual  rates,  and  de- 
duct the  amount  from  the  proceeds  in  your 
hands  from  the  sale  of  my  discourse,  when  it 
shall  be  printed.  My  circular  is  much  longer 
and  more  explicit  and  will  be  forwarded  with- 
out charge  to  any  who  may  desire  it  It  has 
l>een  very  neatly  executed  on  a  letter  sheet  by 
a  very  deserving  printer,  who  attends  upon  my 
ministry,  and  is  a  creditable  specimen  of  the 
typographic  art  I  have  one  hung  over  my 
mantel  -piece  iu  a  neat  frame,  where  it  makes  a 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


179 


beautiful  and'  appropriate  ornament,  and  bal- 
ances the  prolile  of  Mrs.  W.,  cut  with  her  toes 
by  the  young  lady  born  without  arms. 


I  have  in  the  foregoing  letter  mentioned  Gen- 
eral Scott  in  connection  with  the  Presidency, 
because  I  have  been  given  to  understand  that 
he  has  blown  to  pieces  and  otherwise  caused 
to  be  destroyed  more  Mexicans  than  any  other 
commander.  His  claim  would  therefore  be  de- 
servedly considered  the  strongest.  Until  accu- 
rate returns  of  the  Mexicans  killed,  wounded, 
and  maimed  be  obtained,  it  will  be  difficult  to 
settle  these  nice  points  of  precedence.  Should 
it  prove  that  any  other  officer  has  been  more 
meritorious  and  destructive  than  General  S., 
and  has  thereby  rendered  himself  more  worthy 
of  the  confidence  and  support  of  the  conserva- 
tive portion  of  our  community,  I  shall  cheer- 
fully insert  his  name,  instead  of  that  of  General 
S.,  in  a  future  edition.  It  may  be  thought,  like- 
wise, that  General  S.  has  invalidated  his  claims 
by  too  much  attention  to  the  decencies  of  ap- 
parel, and  the  habits  belonging  to  a  gentleman 
These  abstruser  points  of  statesmanship  are  be- 
yond my  scope.  I  wonder  not  that  successful 
military  achievement  should  attract  the  admi- 
ration of  the  multitude.  Rather  do  I  rejoice 
with  wonder  to  behold  how  rapidly  this  senti- 
ment is  losing  its  hold  upon  the  popular  mind. 
It  is  related  of  Thomas  Warton,  the  second  of 
that  honored  name  who  held  the  office  of  Poe- 
try Professor  at  Oxford,  that,  when  one  wished 
to  find  him,  being  absconded,  as  was  his  wont, 
in  some  obscure  alehouse,  he  was  counselled  to 
traverse  the  city  with  a  drum  and  fife,  the 
sound  of  which  inspiring  music  would  be  sure 
to  draw  the  Doctor  from  his  retirement  into 
the  street.  We  are  all  more  or  less  bitten  with 
this  martial  insanity.  Nescio  qua  dnlcedine 
....  evnetos  ducit.  I  confess  to  some  infec- 
tion of  that  itch  myself.  When  I  see  a  Briga- 
dier-General maintaining  his  insecure  elevation 
in  the  saddle  under  the  severe  fire  of  the  train- 
ing-field, and  when  I  remember  that  some  mil- 
itary enthusiasts,  through  haste,  inexperience, 
or  an  over-desire  to  lend  reality  to  those  ficti- 
tious combats,  will  sometimes  discharge  their 
ramrods,  I  cannot  but  admire,  while  T  deplore, 
the  mistaken  devotion  of  those  heroic  officers. 
Semcl  insanivimus  omnes.  I  was  myself,  dur- 
ing the  late  war  with  Great  Britain,  chaplain 
of  a  regiment,  which  was  fortunately  never 
called  to  active  military  duty.  I  mention  this 
circumstance  with  regret  rather  than  pride. 
Had  I  been  summoned  to  actual  warfare,  I 
trust  that  1  might  have  been  strengthened  to 
bear  myself  after  the  manner  of  that  reverend 
father  in  our  New  England  Israel,  Dr.  Benja- 
min Colman,  who,  as  we  are  told  in  Turell's  life 
of  him,  when  the  vessel  in  which  he  had  taken 
passage  for  England  was  attacked  by  a  French 
privateer,  "fought  like  a  philosopher  and  a 
Christian,  ....  and  prayed  all  the  while  he 
charged  and  fired."  As  this  note  is  already 
long,  I  shall  not  here  enter  upon  a  discussion 
of  the  question,  whether  Christians  may  law- 
fully be  soldiers.  I  think  it  sufficiently  evi- 
dent, that,  during  the  first  two  centuries  of  the 
Christian  era.  at  least,  the  two  professions 
were  esteemed  incompatible.  Consult  Jortin 
on  this  head.  —  H.  W.J 


NO.  IV. 

REMARKS  OP  INCREASE  D.  O'PHACE,  ES- 
QUIRE, AT  AN  EXTRUMPERY  CAUCUS  IN 
STATE  STREET,  REPORTED  BY  MR.  H. 
BIGLOW. 

[The  ingenious  reader  will  at  once  understand 
that  no  such  speech  as  the  following  was  ever 
totidem  v>erbis  pronounced.  But  there  are  sim- 
pler and  less  guarded  wits,  for  the  satisfying  of 
which  such  an  explanation  may  be  needful. 
For  there  are  certain  invisible  lines,  which  as 
Truth  successively  overpasses,  she  becomes 
Untruth  to  one  and  another  of  us,  as  a  large 
river,  flowing  from  one  kingdom  into  another, 
sometimes  takes  a  new  name,  albeit  the  waters 
undergo  no  change,  how  small  soever.  There 
is,  moreover,  a  truth  of  fiction  more  veracious 
than  the  truth  of  fact,  as  that  of  the  Poet, 
which  represents  to  us  things  and  events  as 
they  ought  to  be,  rather  than  servilely  copies 
them  as  they  are  imy>erfectly  imaged  in  the 
crooked  and  smoky  glass  of  our  mundane  affairs. 
It  is  this  which  makes  the  speech  of  Antonius, 
though  originally  spoken  in  no  wider  a  forum 
than  the  brain  of  Shakespeare,  more  histori- 
cally valuable  than  that  other  which  Appian 
has  reported,  by  as  much  as  the  understanding 
of  the  Englishman  was  more  comprehensive 
than  that  of  the  Alexandrian.  Mr.  Biglow,  in 
the  present  instance,  has  only  made  use  of  a 
license  assumed  by  all  the  historians  of  antiq- 
uity, who  put  into  the  mouths  of  various  char- 
acters such  words  as  seem  to  them  most  fitting 
to  the  occasion  and  to  the  speaker.  If  it  be 
objected  that  no  .such  oration  could  ever  have 
been  delivered,  1  answer,  that  there  are  few 
assemblages  for  speech-making  which  do  not 
better  deserve  the  title  of  Parlianwntnm.  Indoc- 
torvm  than  did  the  sixth  Parliament  of  Henry 
the  Fourth,  and  that  men  still  continue  to  have, 
as  much  faith  in  the  Oracle  of  Fools  as  ever 
Pantagruel  had.  Howell,  in  his  letters,  re- 
counts a  merry  tale  of  a  certain  ambassador  of 
Queen  Elizabeth,  who,  having  written  two  let- 
ters, —  one  to  her  Majesty,  and  the  other  to  his 
wife,  —  directed  them  at  cross-purposes,  so  that 
the  Queen  was  beducked  and  bedeared  and  re- 
quested to  send  a  change  of  hose,  and  the  wife 
was  beprincessed  and  otherwise  unwontedly 
besuperlatived,  till  the  one  feared  for.  the  wits 
of  her  ambassador,  and  the  other  for  those  of 
her  husband.  In  like  manner  it  may  be  pre- 
sumed that  our  speaker  has  misdirected  some 
of  his  thoughts,  and  given  to  the  whole  theatre 
what  he  would  have  wished  to  confide  only  to 
a  select  auditory  at  the  back  of  the  curtain. 
For  it  is  seldom  that  we  can  get  any  frank  ut- 
terance from  men,  who  address,  for  the  most 
part,  a  Buncombe  either  in  this  world  or  the 
next.  As  for  their  audiences,  it  may  be  truly 
said  of  our  people,  that  they  enjoy  one  political 
institution  in  common  with  the  ancient  Athe- 
nians :  I  mean  a  certain  profitless  kind  of  ostra- 
cism, wherewith,  nevertheless,  they  seem  hith- 
erto well  enough  content.  For  in  Presidential 
elections,  and  other  affairs  of  the  sort,  whereas 
I  observe  that  the  oysters  fall  to  the  lot  of  com- 
paratively few,  the  shells  (such  as  the  privileges 
of  voting  as  they  are  told  to  do  by  the  ostrivori 
aforesaid,  and  of  huzzaing  at  public  meetings) 


180 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


are  very  liberally  distributed  among  the  people, 
as  being  their  prescriptive  and  quite  sufficient 
portion. 

The  occasion  of  the  speech  is  supposed  to  be 
Mr.  Palfrey's  refusal  to  vote  for  the  Whig  can- 
didate tor  the  Speakership.  —  H.  W.J 

No  ?     Hez  he  ?     He  haint,  though  ? 

Wut  ?    Voted  agin  him  ? 
EJ"  the  bird  of  our  country  could  ketch 

him,  she 'd  skin  him  ; 
I  seem  \s  though  I  see  her,  with  wrath 

in  each  quill, 
Like  a  chancery  lawyer,  afilin'  her  bill, 
An'  grindin'  her  talents  ez  sharp  ez  all 

nater, 

To  pounce  like  a  writ  on  the  back  o'  the 
traitor. 

Forgive  me,  my  friends,  ef  I  seem  to  be 
het, 

But  a  crisis  like  this  must  with  vigor  be 
met ; 

Wen  an  Arnold  the  star-spangled  ban- 
ner bestains, 

Holl  Fourth  o'  Julys  seem  to  bile  in  my 
veins. 

Who  ever 'd  ha'  thought  sech  a  pisonous 
rig 

Would  be  run  bv  a  chap  thet  wuz  chose 
fer  a  Wig  ? 

"We  knowed  wut  his  principles  wuz 
'fore  we  sent  him  ? " 

Wut  wuz  ther  in  them  from  this  vote  to 
prevent  him  ? 

A  marciful  Providunce  fashioned  us  hol- 
ler 

0'  purpose  thet  we  might  our  principles 
swaller  ; 

It  can  hold  any  quantity  on  'em,  the 
belly  can, 

An'  bring  'em  up  ready  fer  use  like  the 
pelican, 

Or  more  like  the  kangaroo,  who  (wich  is 
stranger) 

Puts  her  family  into  her  pouch  wen 

there  's  danger. 
Aint  principle  precious  ?  then,  who 's 

goin'  to  use  it 
Wen  there 's  resk  o'  some  chap's  gittin' 

up  to  abuse  it  ? 
I  can't  tell  the  wy  on 't,  but  nothin'  is 

so  sure 

Ez  thet  principle  kind  o'  gits  spiled  by 
exposure  ;  * 

*  The  speaker  is  of  a  different  mind  from 
Tully,  who,  in  his  recently  discovered  tractate 
De  Eepublica,  tells  us,  —  Nec  vero  habere  virtu- 


A  man  thet  lets  all  sorts  o'  folks  git  a 

sight  on 't 
Ough'  to  hev  it  all  took  right  away, 

every  mite  on 't  ; 
Ef  he  can't  keep  it  all  to  himself  wen 

it 's  wise  to, 
He  aint  one  it  \s  fit  to  trust  nothin'  so 

nice  to. 

Besides,  ther  's  a  wonderful  power  in 
latitude 

To  shift  a  man's  morril  relations  an'  at- 
titude ; 

Some  flossifers  think  thet  a  fakkilty 's 
granted 

The  minnit  it 's  proved  to  be  thoroughly 
wanted, 

Thet  a  change  o'  demand  makes  a  change 

o'  condition, 
An'  thet  everythin'  's  nothin'  except  by 

position  ; 

Ez,  fer  instance,  thet  rubber- trees  fust 

begun  bearin' 
Wen  p'litikle  conshunces  come  into 

wearin',  — 
Thet  the  fears  of  a  monkey,  whose  holt 

chanced  to  fail, 
Drawed  the  vertibry  out  to  a  prehensile 

tail  ; 

So,  wen  one 's  chose  to  Congriss,  ez  soon 

ez  he 's  in  it, 
A  collar  grows  right  round  his  neck  in  a 

minnit, 

An'  sartin  it  is  thet  a  man  cannot  be 
strict 

In  bein'  himself,  wen  he  gits  to  the 
Deestrict, 

Fer  a  coat  thet  sets  wal  here  in  ole  Mas- 
sachusetts, 

Wen  it  gits  on  to  Washinton,  somehow 
askew  sets. 

Resolves,  do  you  say,  o'  the  Springfield 

Convention  ? 
Thet  's  percisely  the  pint  I  was  goin'  to 

mention ; 

tern  satis  est,  quasi  artem  aliquant,  nisi  utare, 
and  from  our  Milton,  who  says:  "I  cannot 
praise  a  fugitive  and  cloistered  virtue,  unexer- 
cised and  unbreathed,  that  never  sallies  out 
and  sees  her  adversary,  but  slinks  out  of  the 
race  where  that  immortal  garland  is  to  be  run 
for,  not  without  dust  and  heat."  —  Areop.  He 
had  taken  the  words  out  of  tlie  Roman's  mouth, 
without  knowing  it,  and  might  well  exclaim 
with  Austin  (if  a  saint's  name  may  stand  spon- 
sor for  a  curse),  Pereant  qui  ante  nos  nostra 
dixcrint !  —  H.  W. 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


181 


Resolves  air  a  thing  we  most  gen'ally 
keep  ill, 

They  're  a  cheap  kind  o'  dust  fer  the 

eyes  o'  the  people ; 
A  parcel  o'  delligits  jest  git  together 
An'  chat  fer  a  spell  o'  the  crops  an'  the 

weather, 

Then,  comin'  to  order,  they  squabble 
awile 

An'  let  off  the  speeches  they  're  ferful  '11 
spile ; 

Then  —  Resolve,  —  Thet  we  wunt  hev 

an  inch  o'  slave  territory; 
Thet  President  Polk's  holl  perceedins  air 

very  tory  ; 
Thet  the  war  is  a  damned  war,  an'  them 

thet  enlist  in  it 
Should  hev  a  cravat  with  a  dreffle  tight 

twist  in  it ; 
Thet  the  war  is  a  war  fer  the  spreadin' 

o'  slavery  ; 
Thet  our  army  desarves  our  best  thanks 

fer  their  bravery  ; 
Thet  we  're  the  original  friends  o'  the 

nation, 

All  the  rest  air  a  paltry  an'  base  fabrica- 
tion ; 

Thet  we  highly  respect  Messrs.  A,  B,  an' 
C, 

An'  ez  deeply  despise  Messrs.  E,  F,  an'  G. 
In  this  way  they  go  to  the  eend  o'  the 
chapter, 

An'  then  they  bust  out  in  a  kind  of  a 
raptur 

About  their  own  vartoo,  an'  folks's 

stone-blindness 
To  the  men  thet  'ould  actilly  do  'em  a 

kindness,  — 
The  American  eagle,  —  the  Pilgrims  thet 

landed,  — 

Till  on  ole  Plymouth  Rock  they  git 

finally  stranded. 
Wal,  the  people  they  listen  an'  sav, 

4 'Thet 's  the  ticket; 
Ez  fer  Mexico,  't  aint  no  great  glory  to 

lick  it, 

But 't  would  be  a  darned  shame  to  go 
pullin'  o'  triggers 

To  extend  the  aree  of  abusin'  the  nig- 
gers." 

So  they  march  in  percessions,  an'  git  up 
hooraws, 

An'  tramp  thru  the  mud  fer  the  good  o' 
the  cause, 

An'  think  they  're  a  kind  o'  fulfillin'  the 
prophecies, 


Wen  they  're  on'y  jest  changin'  the 

holders  of  offices  ; 
Ware  A  sot  afore,  B  is  comf'tably  seated, 
One  humbug 's  victor'ous  an' t'  other  de- 
feated, 

Each  honnable  doughface  gits  jest  wut 
he  axes, 

An*  the  people,  —  their  annooal  soft- 
sodder  an'  taxes. 

Now,  to  keep  unimpaired  all  these  glo- 
rious feeturs 

Thet  characterize  morril  an'  reasonin' 
creeturs, 

Thet  give  every  paytriot  all  he  can  cram, 
Thet  oust  the  untrustworthy  Presidunt 
Flam, 

An'  stick  honest  Presidunt  Sham  in  his 
place, 

To  the  manifest  gain  o'  the  holl  human 
race, 

An'  to  some  indervidgewals  on  't  in 

partickler, 
Who  love  Public  Opinion  an'  know  how 

to  tickle  her,  — 
I  say  thet  a  party  with  gret  aims  like 

these 

Must  stick  jest  ez  close  ez  a  hive  full  o' 
bees. 

I  'm  willin'  a  man  should  go  tollable 
strong 

Agin  wrong  in  the  abstract,  fer  thet  kind 
o'  wrong 

Is  oilers  unpop'lar  an'  never  gits  pitied, 
Because  it 's  a  crime  no  one  never  com- 
mitted ; 

But  he  mus'  n't  be  hard  on  partickler 
sins, 

Coz  then  he  '11  be  kickin'  the  people's 

own  shins; 
On'y  look  at  the  Demmercrats,  see  wut 

they 've  done 
Jest  simply  by  stickin'  together  like 

fun ; 

They 've  sucked  us  right  into  a  mis'able 
war 

Thet  no  one  on  airth  aint  responsible 
for; 

They 've  run  us  a  hundred  cool  millions 
in  debt 

(An'  fer  Demmercrat  Homers  ther  's 

good  plums  left  yet); 
They  talk  agin  tayriffs,  but  act  fer  a 

high  one, 

An'  so  coax  all  parties  to  build  up  their 
Zion  ; 


182 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPEES. 


To  the  people  they  're  oilers  ez  slick  ez  I 
molasses, 

An'  butter  their  bread  on  both  sides  with 

The  Masses, 
Half  o'  whom  they 've  persuaded,  by  way 

of  a  joke, 

Thet  Washinton's  mantelpiece  fell  upon 
Polk. 

Now  all  o'  these   blessin's  the  Wigs 

might  enjoy, 
Ef  they 'd  gumption  enough  the  right 

means  to  imploy  ;* 
Fer  the  silver  spoon  bora  in  Dermoc- 

racy's  mouth 
Is  a  kind  of  a  scringe  thet  they  hev  to 

the  South ; 
Their  masters  can  cuss  'em  an'  kick  'em 

an'  wale  'em, 
An'  they  notice  it  less  'an  the  ass  did  to 

Balaam  ; 

In  this  way  they  screw  into  second-rate 
offices 

Wich  the  slaveholder  thinks  'ould  sub- 
stract  too  much  oft'  his  ease  ; 

The  tile-leaders,  I  mean,  du,  fer  they,  by 
their  wiles, 

Unlike  the  old  viper,  grow  fat  on  their 
files. 

Wal,  the  Wigs  hev  been  tryin'  to  grab 

all  this  prey  frum  'em 
An'  to  hook  this  nice  spoon  o'  good  for- 

tin'  away  frum  'em, 
An'  they  might  ha'  succeeded,  ez  likely 

ez  not, 

In  lickin'  the  Demmercrats  all  round 
the  lot, 

Ef  it  warn't  thet,  wile  all  faithful  Wigs 
were  their  knees  on, 

Some  stuffv  old  codger  would  holler  out, 
—  "treason  ! 

You  must  keep  a  sharp  eye  on  a  dog  thet 
hez  bit  you  once, 

An'  /  aint  agoin'  to  cheat  my  constit- 
oounts,"  — 

Wen  every  fool  knows  thet  a  man  repre- 
sents 

Not  the  fellers  thet  sent  him,  but  them 

on  the  fence, — 
Impartially  ready  to  jump  either  side 
An'  make  the  fust  use  of  a  turn  o'  the 

tide,  — 

The  waiters  on  Providunce  here  in  the 
city, 

*  That  was  a  pithy  saying  of  Persius,  ami  fits 
our  politicians  without  a  wrinkle.  —  Magister 
ariU,  ingeniujue  largitor  venter.  —  H.  W. 


Who  compose  wut  they  call  a  State  Cen- 

terl  Committy. 
Constitoounts  air  hendy  to  help  a  man  in, 
But  arterwards  don't  weigh  the  heft  of  a 

pin. 

Wy,  the  people  can't  all  live  on  Uncle 

Sam's  pus, 
So  they 've  nothin'  to  du  with  't  fer 

better  or  wus  ; 
It 's  the  folks  thet  air  kind  o'  brought 

up  to  depend  on 't 
Thet  hev  any  consarn  in 't,  an'  thet  is  the 

end  on  't. 

Now  here  wuz  New  England  ahevin'  the 
honor 

Of  a  chance  at  the  Speakership  showered 

upon  her  ;  — 
Do  you  say,  —  "She  don't  want  no  more 

Speakers,  but  fewer  ; 
She 's  hed  plenty  o'  them,  wut  she  wants 

is  a  doer  "  ? 
Fer  the  matter  o'  thet,  it 's  notorous  in 

town 

Thet  her  own  representatives  du  her 

quite  brown. 
But  thet 's  nothin'  to  du  with  it ;  wut 

right  hed  Palfrey 
To  mix  himself  up  with  fanatical  small 

fry? 

Warn't  we  gittin'  on  prime  with  our  hot 

an'  cold  blowin', 
Acondemnin'  the  war  wilst  we  kep'  it 

agoin'  ? 

We 'd  assumed  with  gret  skill  a  com- 
mandin'  position, 

On  this  side  or  thet,  no  one  could  n't 
tell  wich  one, 

So,  wutever  side  wipped,  we 'd  a  chance 
at  the  plunder 

An'  could  sue  fer  infringin'  our  pay- 
tented  thunder ; 

We  were  ready  to  vote  fer  whoever  wuz 
eligible, 

Ef  on  all  pints  at  issoo  he 'd  stay  unin- 
telligible. 

Wal,  sposin'  we  hed  to  gulp  down  our 

perfessions, 
We  were  ready  to  come  out  next  morn- 

in'  with  fresh  ones  ; 
Besides,  ef  we  did,  't  was  our  business 

alone, 

Fer  could  n't  we  du  wut  we  would  with 
our  own  ? 

An'  ef  a  man  can,  wenpervisionshevrizso, 
Eat  up  his  own  words,  it 's  a  marcy  it 
is  so. 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


183 


Wy,  these  chaps  from  the  North,  with 

back-bones  to  'em,  darn  'em, 
'Quid  be  wnth  more  'an  Gennle  Tom 

Thumb  is  to  Barnum  : 
Ther 's  enough  thet  to  office  on  this  very 

plan  grow, 
By  exhibitin'  how  very  small  a  man  can 

grow  ; 

But  an  M.  C.  from  here  oilers  hastens  to 
state  he 

Belongs  to  the  order  called  invertebraty, 
Wence  some  gret  lilologists  judge  priniy 
fashy 

Thet  M.  C.  is  M.  T.  by  paronomashy; 
An'  these  few  exceptions  air  loosus  nay- 
tury 

Folks  'ould  put  down  their  quarters  to 
stare  at,  like  fury. 

It 's  no  use  to  open  the  door  o'  success, 
Ef  a  member  can  bolt  so  fei  nothin'  or 
less ; 

Wy,  all  o'  them  grand  constitootional 
pillers 

Our  fore-fathers  fetched  with  'em  over 

the  billers, 
Them  pillers  the  people  so  soundly  hev 

slep'  on, 

Wile  to  slav'ry,  invasion,  an'  debt  they 

were  swep'  on, 
Wile  our  Destiny  higher  an'  higher  kep' 

mountin' 

(Though  I  guess  folks  '11  stare  wen  she 

hends  her  account  in), 
Ef  members  in  this  way  go  kicken'  agin 

'em, 

They  wunt  hev  so  much  ez  a  feather  left 
in  'em. 

An',  ez  fer  this  Palfrey,*  we  thought  wen 

we  'd  gut  him  in, 
He 'd  go  kindly  in  wutever  harness  we 

put  him  in ; 
Supposin'  we  did  know  thet  he  wuz  a 

peace  man  I 
Doos  he  think  he  can  be  Uncle  Sammle's 

policeman, 
An'  wen  Sam  gits  tipsy  an'  kicks  up  a 

riot, 

Lead  him  off  to  the  lockup  to  snooze  till 

he  \s  quiet  \ 
Wy,  the  war  is  a  war  thet  true  paytriots 

can  bear,  ef 
It  leads  to  the  fat  promised  land  of  a 

tayriff ; 

*  There  is  truth  yet  in  this  of  Juvenal,  — 
"Dat  veniara  corvis,  vexat  censura  columbas." 

H.  W. 


We  don't  go  an'  fight  it,  nor  aint  to  be 
driv  on, 

Xor  Demmercrats  nuther,  thet  hev  wut 
to  live  on ; 

Ef  it  aint  jest  the  thing  thet 's  well 
pleasin'  to  God, 

It  makes  us  thought  highly  on  else- 
where abroad  ; 

The  Rooshian  black  eagle  looks  blue  in 
his  eerie 

An'  shakes  both  his  heads  wen  he  hears 
o'  Mont  eery; 

In  the  Tower  Victory  sets,  all  of  a  flus- 
ter, 

An'  reads,  with  locked  doors,  how  we 

won  Cherry  Buster ; 
An'  old  Philip  Lewis  —  thet  come  an' 

kep'  school  here 
Fer  the  mere  sake  o'  scorin'  his  ryalist 

ruler 

On  the  tenderest  part  of  our  kings  in 
fiUuro  — 

Hides  his  crown  underneath  an  old  shut 

in  his  bureau, 
Breaks  off  in  his  brags  to  a  suckle  o' 

merry  kings, 
How  he  often  hed  hided  young  native 

Amerrikins, 
An'  turnin'  quite  faint  in  the  midst  of 

his  fooleries, 
Sneaks  down  stairs  to  bolt  the  front 

door  o'  the  Tooleries.* 
You  say, —  "We 'd  ha'  scared  'em  by 

growin'  in  peace, 
A  plaguy  sight  more  then  by  bobberies 

like  these  "  ? 
Who  is  it  dares  say  thet  our  naytional 

eagle 

*  Jortin  is  willing  to  allow  of  other  miracles 
besides  those  recorded  in  Holy  Writ,  and  why 
not  of  other  prophecies?  It  is  granting  too 
much  to  Satan  to  suppose  him,  as  divers  of  the 
learned  have  done,  the  inspirer  of  the  ancient 
oracles.  Wiser,  I  esteem  it,  to  give  chance  the 
credit  of  the  successful  ones.  What  is  said 
here  of  Louis  Philippe  was  verified  in  some  of 
its  minute  particulars  within  a  few  months' 
time  Enough  to  have  made  the  fortune  of 
Delphi  or  Hammon,  and  no  thanks  to  Beelze- 
bub neither !  That  of  Seneca  in  Medea  will 
suit  here :  — 

"  Rapida  fortuna  ac  levis 
Prsecepsque  regno  eripuit,  exsilio  dedit." 

Let  us  allow,  even  to  richly  deserved  misfor- 
tune, our  commiseration,  and  be  not  over-hasty 
meanwhile  in  our  censure  of  the  French  people, 
left  for  the  first  time  to  govern  themselves,  re- 
membering that  wise  sentence  of  iEschylus,  — 

'An-a?  6e  Tpa\vs  ootis  av  viov  Kparf]. 

H.  W. 


184 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


Wun't  much  longer  be  classed  with  the 

birds  thet  air  regal, 
Coz  theirn  be  hooked  beaks,  an'  she, 

arter  this  slaughter, 
'11  bring  back  a  bill  ten  times  longer  'n 

she  ough'  to  "  ? 
Wut 's  your  name  ?  Come,  I  see  ye,  you 

up-country  feller, 
You 've  put  me  out  severil  times  with 

v    your  beller  ; 
Out  with  it  !    Wut  ?    Biglow  ?    I  say 

nothin'  furder, 
Thet  feller  would  like  nothin'  better  'n  a 

murder  ; 

He  's  a  traiter,  blasphemer,  an'  wut 

ruther  worse  is, 
He  puts  all  his  ath'ism  in  dreffle  bad 

verses  ; 

Socity  aint  safe  till  sech  monsters  air  out 
on  it, 

Refer  to  the  Post,  ef  you  hev  the  least 

doubt  on  it; 
Wy,  he  goes  agin  war,  agin  indirect 

taxes, 

Agin  sellin'  wild  lands  'cept  to  settlers 
with  axes, 

Agin  hoi  din'  o'  slaves,  though  he  knows 

it  's  the  corner 
Our    libbaty  rests  on,   the  mis'able 

scorner ! 

In  short,  he  would  wholly  upset  with 
his  ravages 

All  thet  keeps  us  above  the  brute  crit- 
ters an'  savages, 

An'  pitch  into  all  kinds  o'  briles  an' 
confusions 

The  holl  of  our  civilized,  free  institu- 
tions ; 

He  writes  fer  thet  ruther  unsafe  print, 

the  Courier, 
An'  likely  ez  not  hez  a  squintin'  to 

Foorier ; 

I  '11  be  ,  thet  is,  I  mean  I  '11  be 

blest, 

Ef  I  hark  to  a  word  frum  so  noted  a 
pest ; 

I  sha'  n't  talk  with  him,  my  religion  's 

too  fervent. — 
Good  moniin',  my  friends,  I 'm  your 

most  humble  servant. 

[Into  the  question,  whether  the  ability  to  ex- 
press ourselves  in  articulate  language  has  been 
productive  of  more  good  or  evil,  I  shall  not  here 
enter  at  large.  The  two  faculties  of  speech  and 
of  speech-making  are  wholly  diverse  in  their 
natures.  By  the  first  we  make  ourselves  intel- 
ligible, by  the  last  unintelligible,  to  our  fellows. 
It  has  not  seldom  occurred  to  me  (noting  how 


in  our  national  legislature  everything  runs  to 
talk,  as  lettuces,  if  the  season  or  the  soil  be 
unpropitious,  shoot  up  lankly  to  seed,  instead 
of  forming  handsome  heads)  that  Babel  was 
the  first  Congress,  the  earliest  mill  erected  for 
the  manufacture  of  gabble.  In  these  days, 
what  with  Town  Meetings,  School  Committees, 
Boards  (lumber)  of  one  kind  and  another,  Con- 
gresses, Parliaments,  Diets,  Indian  Councils, 
Palavers,  and  the  like,  there  is  scarce  a  village 
which  has  not  its  factories  of  this  description 
driven  by  (milk-and-)  water  power.  I  cannot 
conceive  the  confusion  of  tongues  to  have  been 
the  curse  of  Babel,  since  I  esteem  my  ignorance 
of  other  languages  as  a  kind  of  Martello-tower, 
in  which  I  am  safe  from  the  furious  bombard- 
ments of  foreign  garrulity.  For  this  reason  I 
have  ever  preferred  the  study  of  the  dead  lan- 
guages, those  primitive  formations  being  Ara- 
rats  upon  whose  silent  peaks  I  sit  secure  and 
watch  this  new  deluge  without  fear,  though  it 
rain  figures  (simulacra,  semblances)  of  speech 
forty  days  and  nights  together,  as  it  not  un- 
commonly happens.  Thus  is  my  coat,  as  it 
were,  without  buttons  by  which  any  but  a  ver- 
nacular wild  bore  can  -seize  me.  Is  it  not  pos- 
sible that  the  Shakers  may  intend  to  convey  a 
quiet  reproof  and  hint,  in  fastening  their  outer 
garments  with  hooks  and  eyes? 

This  reflection  concerning  Babel,  which  I 
find  in  no  Commentary,  was  first  thrown  upon 
my  mind  when  an  excellent  deacon  of  my  con- 
gregation (being  infected  with  the  Second  Ad- 
vent delusion)  assured  me  that  he  had  received 
a  first  instalment  of  the  gift  of  tongues  as  a 
small  earnest  of  larger  possessions  in  the  like 
kind  to  follow.  For,  of  a  truth,  I  could  not 
reconcile  it  with  my  ideas  of  the  Divine  justice 
and  mercy  that  the  single  wall  which  protected 
people  of  other  languages  from  the  incursions 
of  this  otherwise  well-meaning  propagandist 
should  be  broken  down. 

In  reading  Congressional  debates,  I  have  fan- 
cied, that,  after  the  subsidence  of  those  painful 
buzzings  in  the  brain  which  result  from  such 
exercises,  I  detected  a  slender  residuum  of  val- 
uable information.  I  made  the  discovery  that 
nothing  takes  longer  in  the  saying  than  anything 
else,  for  as  ex  nihilo  nihil  fit,  so  from  one  poly- 
pus nothing  any  number  of  similar  ones  may  be 
produced.  I  would  recommend  to  the  attention 
of  viva  voce  debaters  and  controversialists  the 
admirable  example  of  the  monk  Copres,  who, 
in  the  fourth  century,  stood  for  half  an  hour 
in  the  midst  of  a  great  fire,  and  thereby  silenced 
a  Manichsean  antagonist  who  had  less  of  the 
salamander  in  him.  As  for  those  who  quarrel 
in  print,  I  have  no  concern  with  them  here, 
since  the  eyelids  are  a  divinely  granted  shield 
against  all  such.  Moreover,  I  have  observed 
in  many  modern  books  that  the  printed  portion 
is  becoming  gradually  smaller,  and  the  number 
of  blank  or  fly-leaves  (as  they  are  called)  great- 
er. Should  this  fortunate  tendency  of  litera- 
ture continue,  books  will  grow  more  valuable 
from  year  to  year,  and  the  whole  Serbonian  bog 
yield  to  the  advances  of  firm  arable  land. 

The  sagacious  Lacedaemonians  hearing  that 
Tesephone  had  bragged  that  he  could  talk  all 
day  long  on  any  given  subject,  made  no  more 
ado,  but  forthwith  banished  him,  whereby  they 
supplied  him  a  topic  and  at  the  same  time  took 
care  that  his  experiment  upon  it  should  be  tried 
out  of  ear-shot. 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


185 


I  have  wondered,  in  the  Representatives' 
Chamber  of  our  own  Commonwealth,  to  mark 
how  little  impression  seemed  to  be  produced 
by  that  emblematic  fish  suspended  over  the 
heads  of  the  members.  Our  wiser  ancestors, 
no  doubt,  hung  it  there  as  being  the  animal 
which  the  Pythagoreans  reverenced  for  its  si- 
lence, and  which  certainly  in  that  particular 
does  not  so  well  merit  the  epithet  cold-blooded, 
by  which  naturalists  distinguish  it,  as  certain 
bipeds,  afflicted  with  ditch-water  on  the  brain, 
who  take  occasion  to  tap  themselves  in  Fan- 
euil  Halls,  meeting-houses,  and  other  places  of 
public  resort.  —  H.  W.J 


No.  V. 

THE  DEBATE  IN  THE  SENNIT. 

SOT  TO  A  NUSRY  RHYME. 

[The  incident  which  gave  rise  to  the  debate 
satirized  in  the  following  verses  was  the  un- 
successful attempt  of  Drayton  and  Sayres  to 
give  freedom  to  seventy  men  and  women,  fel- 
low-beings and  fellow-Christians.  Had  Tripoli, 
instead  of  Washington,  been  the  scene  of  this 
undertaking,  the  unhappy  leaders  in  it  would 
have  been  as  secure  of  the  theoretic  as  they 
now  are  of  the  practical  part  of  martyrdom.  I 
question  whether  the  Dey  of  Tripoli  is  blessed 
with  a  District  Attorney  so  benighted  as  ours 
at  the  seat  of  government.  Very  fitly  is  he 
named  Key,  who  would  allow  himself  to  be 
made  the  instrument  of  locking  the  door  of 
hope  against  sufferers  in  such  a  cause.  Not  all 
the  waters  of  the  ocean  can  cleanse  the  vile 
smutch  of  the  jailer's  fingers  from  off  that  little 
Key.    Ahenea  clavis,  a  brazen  Key  indeed  ! 

Mr.  Calhoun,  who  is  made  the  chief  speaker 
in  this  burlesque,  seems  to  think  that  the  light 
of  the  nineteenth  century  is  to  be  put  out  as 
soon  as  he  tinkles  his  little  cow-bell  curfew. 
Whenever  slavery  is  touched,  he  sets  'up  his 
scarecrow  of  dissolving  the  Union.  This  may 
do  for  the  North,  but  I  should  conjecture  that 
something  more  than  a  pumpkin-lantern  is  re- 
quired to  scare  manifest  and  irretrievable  Des- 
tiny out  of  her  path.  Mr.  Calhoun  cannot  let 
go  the  apron-string  of  the  Past.  The  Past  is  a 
good  nurse,  but  we  must  be  weaned  from  her 
sooner  or  later,  even  though,  like  Plotinus,  we 
should  run  home  from  school  to  ask  the  breast, 
after  we  are  tolerably  well-grown  youths.  It 
will  not  do  for  us  to  hide  our  faces  in  her  lap, 
whenever  the  strange  Future  holds  out  her 
arms  and  asks  us  to  come  to  her. 

But  we  are  all  alike.  We  have  all  heard  it 
said,  often  enough,  that  little  boys  must  not 
play  with  fire  ;  and  yet,  if  the  matches  be  taken 
away  from  us,  and  put  out  of  reach  upon  the 
shelf,  we  must  needs  get  into  our  little  corner, 
and  scowl  and  stamp  and  threaten  the  dire  re- 
venge of  going  to  bed  without  our  supper.  The 
world  shall  stop  till  we  get  our  dangerous  play- 
thing again.  Dame  Earth,  meanwhile,  who  has 
more  than  enough  household  matters  to  mind, 
goes  bustling  hither  and  thither  as  a  hiss  or  a 
sputter  tells  her  that  this  or  that  kettle  of  hers 
is  boiling  over,  and  before  bedtime  we  are  glad 


to  eat  our  porridge  cold,  and  gulp  down  our 
dignity  along  with  it. 

Mr.  Calhoun  has  somehow  acquired  the  name 
of  a  great  statesman,  and,  if  it  be  great  states- 
j  manship  to  put  lance  in  rest  and  run  a  tilt  at 
j  the  Spirit  of  the  Age  with  the  certainty  of  be- 
i  ing  next  moment  hurled  neck  and  heels  into 
the  dust  amid  universal  laughter,  he  deserves 
the  title.  He  is  the  Sir  Kay  of  our  modern 
chivalry.  He  should  remember  the  old  Scan- 
dinavian mythus.  Thor  was  the  strongest  of 
gods,  but  he  could  not  wrestle  with  Time,  nor 
so  much  as  lift  up  a  fold  of  the  great  snake 
which  knit  the  universe  together ;  and  when 
he  smote  the  Earth,  though  with  his  terrible 
mallet,  it  was  but  as  if  a  leaf  had  fallen.  Yet 
all  the  while  it  seemed  to  Thor  that  he  had 
only  been  wrestling  with  an  old  woman,  striv- 
ing to  lift  a  cat,  and  striking  a  stupid  giant  on 
the  head. 

And  in  old  times,  doubtless,  the  giants  were 
stupid,  and  there  was  no  better  sport  for  the 
Sir  Launcelots  and  Sir  Gawains  than  to  go 
about  cutting  off  their  great  blundering  heads 
with  enchanted  swords.  But  things  have  avou- 
derfully  changed.  It  is  the  giants,  nowadays, 
that  have  the  science  and  the  intelligence, 
while  the  chivalrous  Don  Quixotes  of  Conserva- 
tism still  cumber  themselves  with  the  clumsy 
armor  of  a  bygone  age.  On  whirls  the  restless 
globe  through  unsounded  time,  with  its  cities 
and  its  silences,  its  births  and  funerals,  half 
light,  half  shade,  but  never  wholly  dark,  and 
sure  to  swing  round  into  the  happy  morning 
at  last.  With  an  involuntary  smile,  one  sees 
Mr.  Calhoun  letting  slip  his  pack-thread  cable 
with  a  crooked  pin  at  the  end  of  it  to  anchor 
South  Carolina  upon  the  bank  and  shoal  of  the 
Past.—  H.  W.] 

TO  MR.  BUCKENAM. 

MR.  Editer,  As  i  wuz  kinder  pmnin 
round,  in  a  little  nussry  sot  out  a  year  or 
2  a  go,  the  Dbait  in  the  sennit  cum  inter 
my  mine  An  so  i  took  &  Sot  it  to  wut  I 
call  a  nussry  rime.  I  hev  made  sum  onna- 
ble  Gentlemun  speak  that  dident  speak  in 
a  Kind  uv  Poetikul  lie  sense  the  seeson  is 
dreffle  backerd  up  This  way 

ewers  as  ushul 

HOSEA  BIGLOW. 

"Here  we  stan'  on  the  Constitution,  by 
thunder ! 

It 's  a  fact  o'  wick  ther 's  bushils  o' 
proofs  ; 

Fer  how  could  we  trample  on 't  so,  I 
wonder, 

Ef 't  worn't  thet  it 's  oilers  under  our 
hoofs  ? " 
Sez  John  C.  Calhoun,  sez  he ; 
"Human  rights  haint  no  more 
Right  to  come  on  this  floor, 
No  more  'n  the  man  in  the  moon," 
sez  he. 


186 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


"  The  North  haint  no  kind  o'  bisness 
with  nothin', 
An'  you  've  no  idee  how  much  bother 
it  saves ; 

We  aint  none  riled  by  their  frettin'  an' 
frothin', 

We  're  used  to  layin'  the  string  on  our 
slaves," 

Sez  John  C.  Calhoun,  sez  he  ;  — 
Sez  Mister  Foote, 
"  I  should  like  to  shoot 

The  holl  gang,  by  the  gret  horn 
spoon  !  "  sez  he. 

"Freedom's  Keystone  is  Slavery,  thet 
ther 's  no  doubt  on, 
It 's  sutthin'  thet  \s  —  wha' d'  ye  call 
it  ?  —  divine,  — 
An'  the  slaves  thet  we  oilers  make  the 
most  out  on 
Air  them  north  o'  Mason  an'  Dixon's 
line," 

Sez  John  C.  Calhoun,  sez  he  ;  — 
"  Fer  all  thet,"  sez  Mangum, 
"'T  would  be  better  to  hang 'em, 

An'  so  git  red  on  'em  soon,"  sez  he. 

"  The  mass  ough'  to  labor  an'  we  lay  on 
softies, 

Thet 's  the  reason  I  want  to  spread 

Freedom's  aree  ; 
It  puts  all  the  cunninest  on  us  in  office. 
An'   reelises  our    Maker's  orig'nal 

idee," 

Sez  John  C.  Calhoun,  sez  he  ;  — 
"Thet 's  ez  plain,"  sez  Cass, 
"  Ez  thet  some  one 's  an  ass, 

It 's  ez  clear  ez  the  sun  is  at  noon," 
sez  he. 

"  Now  don't  go  to  say  I 'm  the  friend  of 
oppression, 
But  keep  all  your  spare  breath  fer 
coolin'  your  broth, 
Fer  I  oilers  hev  strove  (at  least  thet 's 
my  impression) 
To  make  cussed  free  with  the  rights  o' 
the  North," 
Sez  John  C.  Calhoun,  sez  he  ;  — 
"Yes,"  sez  Davis  o'  Miss., 
"  The  perfection  o'  bliss 
Is  in  skinnin'  thet  same  old  coon," 
sez  he. 

"Slavery  's  a  thing  thet  depends  on 
complexion, 
It 's  God's  law  thet  fetters  on  black 
skins  don't  chafe; 


Ef  brains  wuz  to  settle  it  (horrid  reflec- 
tion !) 

Wich  of  our  onnable  body 'd  be  safe?" 
Sez  John  C.  Calhoun,  sez  he  ;  — 
Sez  Mister  Hannegan, 
Afore  he  began  agin, 
"  Thet  exception  is  quite  opper- 
toon,"  sez  he. 

"  Gen'nle  Cass,  Sir,  you  needn't  be 
twit  chin'  your  collar, 
Your  merit 's  quite  clear  by  the  dut 
on  your  knees, 
At  the  North  we  don't  make  no  distinc- 
tions o'  color  ; 
You  can  all  take  a  lick  at  our  shoes 
wen  you  please," 
Sez  John  C.  Calhoun,  sez  he  ;  — 
Sez  Mister  Jarnagin, 
"  They  wunt  hev  to  lain  agin, 
They  all  on  'em  know  the  old  toon," 
sez  he. 

"  The  slavery  question  aint  no  ways  be- 
wilderin'. 

North  an'  South  hev  one  int'rest,  it 's 
plain  to  a  glance  ; 
No'thern  men,  like  us  patriarchs,  don't 
sell  their  childrin, 
But  they  clu  sell  themselves,  ef  they 
git  a  good  chance," 
Sez  John  C.  Calhoun,  sez  he  ;  — 
Sez  Atherton  here, 
* '  This  is  gittin'  severe, 
I  wish  I  could  dive  like  a  loon,"  sez 
he. 

"  It  '11  break  up  the  Union,  this  talk 

about  freedom, 
An'  your  fact'ry  gals  (soon  ez  we  split) 

'11  make  head, 
An'  gittin'  some  Miss  chief  or  other  to 

lead  'em, 

'11  go  to  work*  raisin*  promiscoous 
Ned," 

Sez  John  C.  Calhoun,  sez  he  ;  — 
"  Yes,  the  North,"  sez  Colquitt, 
"  Ef  we  South eners  all  quit, 

Would  go  down  like  a  busted  bal- 
loon," sez  he. 

* '  Jest  look  wut  is  doin',  wut  annyky 's 
brewin' 

In  the  beautiful  clime  o'  the  olive  an* 
vine, 

All  the  wise  aristoxy 's  a  tumblin'  to  ruin, 
An'  the  sankylots  drorin'  an'  drinkin' 
their  wine," 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


187 


Sez  John  C.  Calhoun,  sez  he  ;  — 
"  Yes,"  sez  Johnson,  "in  France 
They  're  beginnin'  to  dance 

Beelzebub's  own  rigadoon,"  sez  he. 

"  The  South 's  safe  enough,  it  don't  feel 

a  mite  skeery, 
Our  slaves  in  their  darkness  an'  dut 

air  tu  blest 
Not  to  welcome  with  proud  hallylugers 

the  ery 

Wen  our  eagle  kicks  yourn  from  the 
naytional  nest," 
Sez  John  C.  Calhoun,  sez  he  ;  — 
"  O,"  sez  Westcott  o'  Florida, 
"  Wut  treason  is  horrider 
Then  our  priv' leges  try  in'  to  proon  ? " 
sez  he. 

"It 's  'coz  they  're  so  happy,  thet,  wen 
crazy  sarpints 
Stick  their  nose  in  our  bizness,  we  git 
so  darned  riled  ; 
We  think  it 's  our  dooty  to  give  pooty 
sharp  hints, 
Thet  the  last  crumb  of  Edin  on  airth 
sha'  n't  be  spiled," 
Sez  John  C.  Calhoun,  sez  he  ;  — 
"Ah,"  sez  Dixon  H.  Lewis, 
"  It  perfectly  true  is 
Thet  slavery 's  airth 's  grettestboon, " 
sez  he. 

[It  was  said  of  old  time,  that  riches  have 
wings  ;  and,  though  this  be  not  applicable  in 
a  literal  strictness  to  the  wealth  of  our  patri- 
archal brethren  of  the  South,  yet  it  is  clear  that 
their  possessions  have  legs,  and  an  unaccount- 
able propensity  for  using  them  in  a  northerly 
direction.  I  marvel  that  the  grand  jury  of 
Washington  did  not  find  a  true  bill  against  the 
North  Star  for  aiding  and  abetting  Drayton  and 
Sayres.  It  would  have  been  quite  of  a  piece 
witli  the  intelligence  displayed  by  the  South 
on  other  questions  connected  with  slavery.  I 
think  that  no  ship  of  state  was  ever  freighted 
with  a  more  veritable  Jonah  than  this  same 
domestic  institution  of  ours.  Mephistopheles 
himself  could  not  feign  so  bitterly,  so  satirically 
sad  a  sight  as  this  of  three  millions  of  human 
beings  crushed  beyond  help  or  hope  by  this 
one  mighty  argument,  —  Our  fathers  knew  no 
better !  Nevertheless,  it  is  the  unavoidable  des- 
tiny of  J onahs  to  be  cast  overboard  sooner  or 
later.  Or  shall  we  try  the  experiment  of  hid- 
ing our  Jonah  in  a  safe  place,  that  none  may 
lay  hands  on  him  to  make  jetsam  of  him  ?  Let 
us,  then,  with  equal  forethought  and  wisdom, 
lash  ourselves  to  the  anchor,  and  await,  in  pious 
confidence,  the  certain  result.  Perhaps  our 
suspicious  passenger  is  no  Jonah  after  all,  be- 
ing black.  For  it  is  well  known  that  a  superin- 
tending Providence  made  a  kind  of  sandwich 
of  Ham  and  his  descendants,  to  be  devoured 
by  the  Caucasian  race. 


In  God's  name,  let  all,  who  hear  nearer  and 
nearer  the  hungry  moan  of  the  storm  and  the 
growl  of  the  breakers,  speak  out !  But,  alas  ! 
we  have  no  right  to  interfere.  If  a  man  pluck 
an  apple  of  mine,  he  shall  be  in  danger  of  the 
justice  ;  but  if  he  steal  my  brother,  I  must  be 
silent.  Who  says  this  ?  Our  Constitution,  con- 
secrated by  the  callous  consuetude  of  sixty 
years,  and  grasped  in  triumphant  argument  by 
the  left  hand  of  him  whose  right  hand  clutches 
the  clotted  slave-whip.  Justice,  venerable  with 
the  undethronable  majesty  of  countless  seons, 
says,  —  Speak  !  The  Past,  wise  with  the  sor- 
rows and  desolations  of  ages,  from  amid  her 
shattered  fanes  and  wolf-housing  palaces,  ech- 
oes, —  Speak  !  Nature,  through  her  thousand 
trumpets  of  freedom,  her  stars,  her  sunrises, 
her  seas,  her  winds,  her  cataracts,  her  moun- 
tains blue  with  cloudy  pines,  blows  jubilant 
encouragement,  and  cries, — Speak!  From 
the  soul's  trembling  abysses  the  still,  small 
voice  not  vaguely  murmurs,  —  Speak  !  But, 
alas  !  the  Constitution  and  the  Honorable  Mr. 
Bagowind,  M.  C. ,  say  —  Be  dumb  ! 

It  occurs  to  me  to  suggest,  as  a  topic  of  in- 
quiry in  this  connection,  whether,  on  that  mo- 
mentous occasion  when  the  goats  and  the  sheep 
shall  be  parted,  the  Constitution  and  the  Hon- 
orable Mr.  Bagowind,  M.  C,  will  be  expected 
to  take  their  places  on  the  left  as  our  hircine 
vicars. 

Quid  sum  miser  tunc  dicturus  ? 
Quern  patronum  rogaturus  ? 

There  is  a  point  where  toleration  sinks  into 
sheer  baseness  and  poltroonery.  The  toleration 
of  the  worst  leads  us  to  look  on  what  is  barely 
better  as  good  enough,  and  to  worship  what  is 
only  moderately  good.  Woe  to  that  man,  or 
that  nation,  to  whom  mediocrity  has  become  an 
ideal  ! 

Has  our  experiment  of  self-government  suc- 
ceeded, if  it  barely  manage  to  rub  and  go  ? 
Here,  now,  is  a  piece  of  barbarism  which  Christ 
and  the  nineteenth  century  say  shall  cease,  and 
which  Messrs.  Smith,  Brown,  and  others  say 
shall  not  cease.  I  would  by  no  means  deny  the 
eminent  respectability  of  these  gentlemen,  but 
I  confess,  that,  in  such  a  wrestling-match,  I 
cannot  help  having  my  fears  for  them. 

Discite  justitiam,  moniti,  et  non  temnere  divos. 

H.  W.] 


No.  VI. 

THE  PIOUS  EDITOR'S  CREED. 

[At  the  special  instance  of  Mr.  Biglow,  I 
preface  the  following  satire  with  an  extract 
from  a  sermon  preached  during  the  past  sum- 
mer, from  Ezekiel  xxxiv.  2:  "Son  of  man, 
prophesy  against  the  shepherds  of  Israel." 
Since  the  Sabbath  on  which  this  discourse  was 
delivered,  the  editor  of  the  "  Jaalam  Indepen- 
dent Blunderbuss  "  has  unaccountably  absented 
himself  from  our  house  of  worship. 

"  I  know  of  no  so  responsible  x>osition  as  that 
of  the  public  journalist.  The  editor  of  our  day 
bears  the  same  relation  to  his  time  that  the 
clerk  bore  to  the  age  before  the  invention  of 


188 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


printing.  Indeed,  the  position  which  he  holds 
is  that  which  the  clergyman  should  hold  even 
now.  But  the  clergyman  chooses  to  walk  off  to 
the  extreme  edge  of  the  world,  and  to  throw 
such  seed  as  he  has  clear  over  into  that  dark- 
ness which  he  calls  the  Next  Life.  As  if  next 
did  not  mean  nearest,  and  as  if  any  life  were 
nearer  than  that  immediately  present  one  which 
boils  and  eddies  all  around  him  at  the  caucus, 
the  ratification  meeting,  and  the  polls  !  Who 
taught  him  to  exhort  men  to  prepare  for  eter- 
nity, as  for  some  future  era  of  which  the  pres- 
ent forms  no  integral  part?  The  furrow  which 
Time  is  even  now  turning  runs  thr  ugh  the 
Everlasting,  and  in  that  must  he  plant,  or  no- 
where. Yet  he  would  fain  believe  and  teach 
that  we  are  going  to  have  more  of  eternity  than 
we  have  now.  This  going  of  his  is  like  that  of 
the  auctioneer,  on  which  gone  follows  before  we 
have  made  up  our  minds  to  bid,  —  in  which 
manner,  not  three  months  back,  I  lost  an  ex- 
cellent copy  of  Chappelow  on  Job.  So  it  has 
come  to  pass  that  the  preacher,  instead  of  be- 
ing a  living  force,  has  faded  into  an  emblematic 
figure  at  christenings,  weddings,  and  funerals. 
Or,  if  he  exercise  any  other  function,  it  is  as 
keeper  and  feeder  of  certain  theologic  dogmas, 
which,  when  occasion  offers,  he  unkennels  with 
a  staboy !  '  to  bark  and  bite  as 't  is  their  nature 
to,'  whence  that  reproach  of  odium  theologicum 
has  arisen. 

"Meanwhile,  see  what  a  pulpit  the  editor 
mounts  daily,  sometimes  with  a  congregation 
of  fifty  thousand  within  reach  of  his  voice,  and 
never  so  much  as  a  nodder,  even,  among  them  ! 
And  from  what  a  Bible  can  he  choose  his  text, 
—  a  Bible  which  needs  no  translation,  and 
which  no  priestcraft  can  shut  and  clasp  from 
the  laity,  — the  open  volume  of  the  world,  upon 
which,  with  a  pen  of  sunshine  or  destroying 
fire,  the  inspired  Present  is  even  now  writing 
the  annals  of  God  !  Methinks  the  editor  who 
should  understand  his  calling,  and  be  equal 
thereto,  would  truly  deserve  that  title  of  ttolixtjv 
Aawv,  which  Homer  bestows  upon  princes.  He 
would  be  the  Moses  of  our  nineteenth  century  ; 
and  whereas  the  old  Sinai,  silent  now,  is  but  a 
common  mountain  stared  at  by  the  elegant 
tourist  and  crawled  over  by  the  hammering 
geologist,  he  must  find  his  tables  of  the  new  law 
here  among  factories  and  cities  in  this  Wilder- 
ness of  Sin  (Numbers  xxxiii.  12)  called  Progress 
of  Civilization,  and  be  the  captain  of  our  Exo- 
dus into  the  Canaan  of  a  truer  social  order. 

"Nevertheless,  our  editor  will  not  come  so 
far  within  even  the  shadow  of  Sinai  as  Mahomet 
did,  but  chooses  rather  to  construe  Moses  by 
Joe  Smith.  He  takes  up  the  crook,  not  that 
the  sheep  may  be  fed,  but  that  he  may  never 
want  a  warm  woollen  suit  and  a  joint  of  mut- 
ton. 

Immemor,  0,  fidei,  pecorumque  oblite  tuorum ! 

For  which  reason  I  would  derive  the  name 
editor  not  so  much  from  edo,  to  publish,  as  from 
edo,  to  eat,  that  being  the  peculiar  profession 
to  which  he  esteems  himself  called.  He  blows 
up  the  flames  of  political  discord  for  no  other 
occasion  than  that  he  may  thereby  handily  boil 
his  own  pot.  I  believe  there  are  two  thousand 
of  these  mutton-loving  shepherds  in  the  United 
States,  and  of  these,  how  many  have  even  the 
dimmest  perception  of  their  immense  power, 


and  the  duties  consequent  thereon  ?  Here  and 
there,  haply,  one.  Nine  hundred  and  ninety- 
nine  labor  to  impress  upon  the  people  the 
great  principles  of  Tweedledum,  and  other  nine 
hundred  and  ninety-nine  preach  with  equal 
earnestness  the  gospel  according  to  Twecdle- 
dee. "  —  H.  W.] 

I  du  believe  in  Freedom's  cause, 

Ez  fur  away  ez  Payris  is  ; 
I  love  to  see  her  stick  her  claws 

In  them  infarnal  Phayrisees  ; 
It 's  wal  enough  agin  a  king 

To  dror  resolves  an'  triggers,  — 
But  libbaty  's  a  kind  o'  thing 

Thet  don't  agree  with  niggers. 

I  du  believe  the  people  want 

A  tax  on  teas  an'  coffees, 
Thet  nothin'  aint  extra vygunt,  — 

Purvidin'  I 'm  in  office ; 
Fer  I  hev  loved  my  country  seuce 

My  eye-teeth  filled  their  sockets, 
An'  Uncle  Sam  I  reverence, 

Partic'larly  his  pockets. 

I  du  believe  in  any  plan 

0'  levyin'  the  taxes, 
Ez  long  ez,  like  a  lumberman, 

I  git  jest  wut  I  axes ; 
I  go  free-trade  thru  thick  an'  thin, 

Because  it  kind  o'  rouses 
The  folks  to  vote,  —  an'  keeps  us  in 

Our  quiet  custom-houses. 

I  du  believe  it 's  wise  an'  good 

To  sen'  out  furrin  missions, 
Thet  is,  on  sartin  understood 

An'  orthydox  conditions  ;  — 
I  mean  nine  thousan'  dolls,  per  ann., 

Nine  thousan'  more  fer  outfit, 
An'  me  to  recommend  a  man 

The  place  'ould  jest  about  fit 

I  du  believe  in  special  ways 

0'  prayin'  an'  convartin' ; 
The  bread  comes  back  in  many  days, 

An'  buttered,  tu,  fer  sartin  ; 
I  mean  in  preyin'  till  one  busts 

On  wut  the  party  chooses, 
An'  in  convartin'  public  trusts 

To  very  privit  uses. 

I  du  believe  hard  coin  the  stuff 
Fer  'lection eers  to  spout  on  ; 

The  people  's  oilers  soft  enough 
To  make  hard  money  out  on  ; 

Dear  Uncle  Sam  pervides  fer  his, 
An'  gives  a  good- sized  junk  to  all,  — 


THE  BIGLOW  TAPERS. 


189 


I  don't  care  how  hard  money  is, 
Ez  long  ez  mine  \s  paid  punctooal. 

I  du,  believe  with  all  my  soul 

In  the  gret  Press's  freedom, 
To  pint  the  people  to  the  goal 

An'  in  the  traces  lead  'em  ; 
Palsied  the  arm  thet  forges  yokes 

At  my  fat  contracts  squintin', 
An'  withered  be  the  nose  thet  pokes 

Inter  the  gov'ment  printin' ! 

I  du  believe  thet  I  should  give 

Wut 's  his'n  unto  Caesar, 
Fer  it 's  by  him  I  move  an'  live, 

Frum  him  my  bread  an'  cheese  air ; 
I  du  believe  thet  all  o'  me 

Doth  bear  his  superscription,  — 
Will,  conscience,  honor,  honesty, 

An'  things  o'  thet  description. 

I  du  believe  in  prayer  an'  praise 

To  him  thet  hez  the  grantin' 
0'  jobs,  —  in  every  thin'  thet  pays, 

But  most  of  all  in  Cantin'  ; 
This  doth  my  cup  with  marcies  fill, 

This  lays  all  thought  o'  sin  to  lest, — 
I  don't  believe  in  princerple, 

But  0,  I  du  in  interest. 

1  du  believe  in  bein'  this 

Or  thet,  ez  it  may  happen 
One  way  or  t'  other  hendiest  is 

To  ketch  the  people  nappin' ; 
It  aint  by  princerples  nor  men 

My  preudunt  course  is  steadied, — 
I  scent  wich  pays  the  best,  an'  then 

Go  into  it  baldheaded. 

I  du  believe  thet  holdin'  slaves 

Comes  nat'ral  to  a  Presidunt, 
Let  'lone  the  rowdedow  it  saves 

To  hev  a  wal-broke  precedunt ; 
Fer  any  office,  small  or  gret, 

I  could  n't  ax  with  no  face, 
Without  I 'd  ben,  thru  dry  an'  wet, 

Th'  unrizzest  kind  o'  doughface. 

I  du  believe  wutever  trash 

'11  keep  the  people  in  blindness,  — 
Thet  we  the  Mexicuns  can  thrash 

Right  inter  brotherly  kindness, 
Thet  bombshells,  grape,  an'  powder  'n' 
ball 

Air  good- will's  strongest  magnets, 
Thet  peace,  to  make  it  stick  at  all, 
Must  be  druv  in  with  bagnets. 


In  short,  I  firmly  du  believe 

In  Humbug  generally, 
Fer  it 's  a  thing  thet  I  perceive 

To  hev  a  solid  vally  ; 
This  heth  my  faithful  shepherd  ben, 

In  pasturs  sweet  heth  led  me, 
An'  this '11  keep  the  people  green 

To  feed  ez  they  hev  fed  me. 

[I  subjoin  here  another  passage  from  my 
before-mentioned  discourse. 

"  Wonderful,  to  him  that  has  eyes  to  see  it 
rightly,  is  the  newspaper.  To  me,  for  exam- 
ple, sitting  on  the  critical  front  bench  of  the 
pit,  in  my  study  here  in  Jaalam,  the  advent 
of  my  weekly  journal  is  as  that  of  a  strolling 
theatre,  or  rather  of  a  puppet-show,  on  whose 
stage,  narrow  as  it  is,  the  tragedy,  comedy,  and 
>arce  of  life  are  played  in  little.  Behold  the 
whole  huge  earth  sent  to  me  hebdomadally  in 
a  brown-paper  wrapper  ! 

44  Hither,  to  my  obscure  corner,  by  wind  or 
steam,  on  horseback  or  dromedary-back,  in  the 
pouch  of  the  Indian  runner,  or  clicking  over 
the  magnetic  wires,  troop  all  the  famous  per- 
formers from  the  four  quarters  of  the  globe. 
Looked  at  from  a  point  of  criticism,  tiny  pup- 
pets they  seem  all,  as  the  editor  sets  up  his 
booth  upon  my  desk  and  officiates  as  showman. 
Now  I  can  truly  see  how  little  and  transitory 
is  life.  The  earth  appears  almost  as  a  drop  of 
vinegar,  on  which  the  solar  microscope  of  the 
imagination  must  be  brought  to  bear  in  order 
to  make  out  anything  distinctly.  That  animal- 
cule there,  in  the  pea-jacket,  is  Louis  Philippe, 
just  landed  on  the  coast  of  England.  That 
other,  in  the  gray  surtout  and  cocked  hat,  is 
Napoleon  Bonaparte  Smith,  assuring  France 
that  she  need  apprehend  no  interference  from 
him  in  the  present  alarming  juncture.  At  that 
spot,  where  you  seem  to  see  a  speck  of  some- 
thing in  motion,  is  an  immense  mass-meeting. 
Look  sharper,  and  you  will  see  a  mite  bran- 
dishing his  mandibles  in  an  excited  manner. 
That  is  the  great  Mr.  Soandso,  defining  his  po- 
sition amid  tumultuous  and  irrepressible  cheers. 
That  infinitesimal  creature,  upon  whom  some 
score  of  others,  as  minute  as  he,  are  gazing  in 
open-mouthed  admiration,  is  a  famous  philoso- 
pher, expounding  to  a  select  audience  theii 
capacity  for  the  Infinite.  That  scarce  discern- 
ible pufflet  of  smoke  and  dust  is  a  revolution. 
That  speck  there  is  a  reformer,  just  arranging 
the  lever  with  which  he  is  to  move  the  world. 
And  lo,  there  creeps  forward  the  shadow  of  a 
skeleton  that  blows  one  breath  between  its 
grinning  teeth,  and  all  our  distinguished  actors 
are  whisked  off  the  slippery  stage  into  the  dark 
Beyond. 

44  Yes,  the  little  show-box  has  its  solemner 
suggestions.  Now  and  then  we  catch  a  glimpse 
of  a  grim  old  man,  who  lays  down  a  scythe  and 
hour-glass  in  the  corner  while  he  shifts  the 
scenes.  There,  too,  in  the  dim  background,  a 
weird  shape  is  ever  delving.  Sometimes  he 
leans  upon  his  mattock,  and  gazes,  as  a  coach 
whirls  by,  bearing  the  newly  married  on  their 
wedding  jaunt,  or  glances  carelessly  at  a  babe 
brought  home  from  christening.  Suddenly  (for 
the  scene  grows  larger  and  larger  as  we  look)  a 


190 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


bony  hand  snatches  back  a  performer  in  the 
midst  of  his  part,  and  him,  whom  yesterday 
two  infinities  (past  and  future)  would  not  suf- 
fice, a  handful  of  dust  is  enough  to  cover  and 
silence  forever.  Nay,  we  see  the  same  fleshless 
fingers  opening  to  clutch  the  showman  himself, 
and  guess,  not  without  a  shudder,  that  they  are 
lying  in  wait  ior  spectator  also. 

"Think  of  it :  for  three  dollars  a  year  I  buy 
a  season-ticket  to  this  great  Globe  Theatre,  for 
which  God  would  write  the  dramas  (only  that 
we  like  farces,  spectacles,  and  the  tragedies  of 
Apollyon  better),  whose  scene-shifter  is  Time, 
and  whose  curtain  is  rung  down  by  Death. 

"Such  thoughts  will  occur  to  me  sometimes 
as  1  am  tearing  off  the  wrapper  of  my  news- 
paper. Then  suddenly  that  otherwise  too  often 
vacant  sheet  becomes  invested  for  me  with  a 
strange  kind  of  awe.  Look  !  deaths  and  mar- 
riages, notices  of  inventions,  discoveries,  and 
books,  lists  of  promotions,  of  killed,  wounded, 
and  missing,  news  of  fires,  accidents,  of  sudden 
wealth  and  as  sudden  poverty  :—  I  hold  in  my 
hand  the  ends  of  myriad  invisible  electric  con- 
ductors, along  which  tremble  the  joys,  sorrows, 
wrongs,  triumphs,  hopes,  and  despairs  of  as 
many  men  and  women  everywhere.  So  that 
upon  that  mood  of  mind  which  seems  to  isolate 
me  from  mankind  as  a  spectator  of  their  pup- 
pet-pranks, another  supervenes,  in  which  I 
feel  that  I,  too,  unknown  and  unheard  of,  am 
yet  of  some  import  to  my  fellows.  For,  through 
my  newspaper  here,  do  not  families  take  pains 
to  send  me,  an  entire  stranger,  news  of  a  death 
among  them?  Are  not  here  two  who  would 
have  me  know  of  their  marriage?  And,  stran- 
gest of  all,  is  not  this  singular  person  anxious  to 
have  me  informed  that  he  has  received  a  fresh 
supply  of  Dimitry  Bruisgins?  But  to  none  of 
us  does  the  Present  continue  miraculous  (even 
if  for  a  moment  discerned  as  such).  We  glance 
carelessly  at  the  sunrise,  and  get  used  to 
Orion  and  the  Pleiades.  The  wonder  wears  off, 
and  to-morrow  this  sheet,  in  which  a  vision 
was  let  down  to  me  from  Heaven,  shall  be  the 
wrappage  to  a  bar  of  soap  or  the  platter  for  a 
beggar's  broken  victuals."  —  H.  W.] 


No.  VII. 
A  LETTER 

FROM  A  CANDIDATE  FOR  THE  PRESIDENCY 
IN  ANSWER  TO  SUTTIN  QUESTIONS  PRO- 
POSED BY  MR.  HOSEA  BIGLOW,  INCLOSED 
IN  A  NOTE  FROM  MR.  BIGLOW  TO  S  H. 
GAY,  ESQ.,  EDITOR  OF  THE  NATIONAL 
ANTISLAVERY  STANDARD. 

[Curiosity  may  be  said  to  be  the  quality 
which  pre-emineiitly  distinguishes  and  segre- 
gates man  from  the  lower  animals.  As  we  trace 
the  scale  of  animated  nature  downward,  we 
find  this  faculty  (as  it  may  truly  be  called)  of 
the  mind  diminished  in  the  savage,  and  quite 
extinct  in  the  brute.  The  first  object  which 
civilized  man  proposes  to  himself  I  take  to  be 
the  finding  out  whatsoever  he  can  concerning 
his  neighbors.    Nihil  humanum  a  me  alienum 


puto ;  I  am  curious  about  even  John  Smith. 
The  desire  next  in  strength  to  this  (an  oppo- 
site pole,  indeed,  of  the  same  magnet)  is  that 
of  communicating  the  unintelligence  we  have 
carefully  picked  up.  » 

Men  in  general  may  be  divided  into  the  in- 
quisitive and  the  communicative.  To  the 
first  class  belong  Peeping  Toms,  eaves-drop- 
pers, navel-contemplating  Brahmins,  metaphy- 
sicians, travellers,  Empedocleses,  spies,  the 
various  societies  for  promoting  Rhinothism, 
Columbuses,  Yankees,  discoverers,  and  men  of 
science,  who  present  themselves  to  the  mind  as 
so  many  marks  of  interrogation  wandering  up 
and  down  the  world,  or  sitting  in  studies  and 
laboratories.  The  second  class  I  should  again 
subdivide  into  four.  In  the  first  subdivision 
I  would  rank  those  who  have  an  itch  to  tell 
us  about  themselves,  —  as  keepers  of  diaries, 
insignificant  persons  generally,  Montaignes, 
Horace  Walpoles,  autobiographers,  poets.  The 
second  includes  those  who  are  anxious  to  im- 
part information  concerning  other  people,  — as 
historians,  barbers,  and  such.  To  the  third  be- 
long those  who  labor  to  give  us  intelligence 
about  nothing  at  all,  —  as  novelists,  political 
orators,  the  large  majority  of  authors,  preach- 
ers, lecturers,  and  the  like.  In  the  fourth 
come  those  who  are  communicative  from  mo- 
tives of  public  benevolence,  —  as  finders  of 
mares'-nests  and  bringers  of  ill  news.  Each  of 
us  two-legged  fowls  without  feathers  embraces 
all  these  subdivisions  in  himself  to  a  greater  or 
less  degree,  for  none  of  us  so  much  as  lays  an 
egg,  or  incubates  a  chalk  one,  but  straightway 
the  whole  barnyard  shall  know  it  by  our  cackle 
or  our  cluck.  Omnibus  hoc  vitium  est.  There 
are  different  grades  in  all  these  classes.  One 
will  turn  his  telescope  toward  a  back-yard, 
another  toward  Uranus  ;  one  will  tell  you  that 
he  dined  with  Smith,  another  that  he  supped 
with  Plato.  In  one  particular,  all  men  may  be 
considered  as  belonging  to  the  first  grand  divis- 
ion, inasmuch  as  they  all  seem  equally  desir- 
ous of  discovering  the  mote  in  their  neighbor's 
eye. 

To  one  or  another  of  these  species  every  hu- 
man being  may  safely  be  referred.  I  think  it 
beyond  a  peradventure  that  Jonah  prosecuted 
some  inquiries  into  the  digestive  apparatus  of 
whales,  and  that  Noah  sealed  up  a  letter  in 
an  empty  bottle,  that  news  in  regard  to  him 
might  not  be  wanting  in  case  of  the  worst. 
They  had  else  been  super  or  subter  human.  I 
conceive,  also,  that,  as  there  are  certain  persons 
who  continually  peep  and  pry  at  the  keyhole 
of  that  mysterious  door  through  which,  sooner 
or  later,  we  all  make  our  exits,  so  there  are 
doubtless  ghosts  fidgeting  and  fretting  on  the 
other  side  of  it,  because  they  have  no  means  of 
conveying  back  to  this  world  the  scraps  of 
news  they  have  picked  up  in  that.  For  there 
is  an  answer  ready  somewhere  to  every  ques- 
tion, the  great  law  of  give  and  take  runs 
through  all  nature,  and  if  we  see  a  hook,  we 
may  be  sure  that  an  eye  is  waiting  for  it.  I 
read  in  every  face  I  meet  a  standing  advertise- 
ment of  information  wanted  in  regard  to  A.  B., 
or  that  the  friends  of  C.  D.  can  hear  something 
to  his  disadvantage  by  application  to  such  a 
one. 

It  was  to  gratify  the  two  great  passions  of 
asking  and  answering  that  epistolary  corre- 
spondence was  first  invented.     Letters  (for  by 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


191 


this  usurped  title  epistles  are  now  commonly 
known)  are  of  several  kinds.  First,  there  are 
those  which  are  not  letters  at  all,  —  as  letters- 
patent,  letters  dimissory,  letters  enclosing 
bills,  letters  of  administration,  Pliny's  letters, 
letters  of  diplomacy,  of  Cato,  of  Mentor,  of 
Lords  Lyttelton,  Chesterfield,  and  Orrery,  of 
Jacob  Behmen,  Seneca  (whom  St.  Jerome  in- 
cludes in  his  list  of  sacred  writers),  letters  from 
abroad,  from  sons  in  college  to  their  fathers, 
letters  of  marque,  and  letters  generally,  which 
are  in  no  wise  letters  of  mark.  Second,  are 
real  letters,  such  as  those  of  Gray,  Cowper, 
Walpole,  Howel,  Lamb,  D.  Y.,  the  first  letters 
from  children  (printed  in  staggering  capitals), 
Letters  from  New  York,  letters  of  credit,  and 
others,  interesting  for  the  sake  of  the  writer 
or  the  thing  written.  I  have  read  also  letters 
from  Europe  by  a  gentleman  named  Pinto,  con- 
taining some  curious  gossip,  and  which  I  hope 
to  see  collected  for  the  benefit  of  the  curious. 
There  are,  besides,  letters  addressed  to  pos- 
terity,—  as  epitaphs,  for  example,  written  for 
their  own  monuments  by  monarchs,  whereby 
we  have  lately  become  possessed  of  the  names 
of  several  great  conquerors  and  kings  of  kings, 
hitherto  unheard  of  and  still  unpronounceable, 
but  valuable  to  the  student  of  the  entirely  dark 
ages.  The  letter  which  St.  Peter  sent  to  King 
Pepin  in  the  year  of  grace  755,  that  of  the  Vir- 
gin to  the  magistrates  of  Messina,  that  of  St. 
Gregory  Thaumaturgus  to  the  D — 1,  and  that  of 
this  last-mentioned  active  police-magistrate  to 
a  nun  of  Girgenti,  I  would  place  in  a  class  by 
themselves,  as  also  the  letters  of  candidates, 
concerning  which  I  shall  dilate  more  fully  in 
a  note  at  the  end  of  the  following  poem.  At 
present,  sat  prata  biberunt.  Only,  concerning 
the  shape  of  letters,  they  are  all  either  square 
or  oblong,  to  which  general  figures  circular 
letters  and  round-robins  also  conform  them- 
selves. —  H.  W.l 

Deer  sir  its  gut  to  be  the  fashun  now 
to  rite  letters  to  the  candid  8s  and  i  wus 
chose  at  a  publick  Meetin  in  Jaalam  to  du 
wut  wus  nessary  fur  that  town,  i  writ  to 
271  ginerals  and  gut  ansers  to  209.  tha 
air  called  candid  8s  but  I  don't  see  nothin 
candid  about  'em.  this  here  1  wich  I 
send  wus  thought  satty's  factory.  I  dunno 
as  it's  ushle  to  print  Poscrips,  but  as  all 
the  ansers  I  got  hed  the  saim,  I  sposed  it 
wus  best.  times  has  gretly  changed. 
Formaly  to  knock  a  man  into  a  cocked  hat 
wus  to  use  him  up,  but  now  it  ony  gives 
him  a  chance  fur  the  cheef  madgustracy. 
—  H.  B. 

Dear  Sir, — You  wish  to  know  my 
notions 

On  sartin  pints  thet  rile  the  land  ; 
There  's  nothin'   thet  my  natur  so 
shuns 

Ez  bein'  mum  or  underhand; 
I 'm  a  straight-spoken  kind  o'  creetur 
Thet  blurts  right  out  wut's  in  his 
head, 


An  ef  1  've  one  pecooler  feetur, 
It  is  a  nose  thet  wunt  be  led. 

So,  to  begin  at  the  beginnin' 

An'  come  direcly  to  the  pint, 
I  think  the  country 's  underpinning 

Is  some  consid'ble  out  o'  jint ; 
I  aint  agoin'  to  try  your  patience 

By  tellin'  who  done  this  or  thet, 
I  don't  make  no  insinooations, 

I  jest  let  on  I  smell  a  rat. 

Thet  is,  I  mean,  it  seems  to  me  so, 

But,  ef  the  public  think  I 'm  wrong, 
I  wunt  deny  but  wut  I  be  so, — 

An',  fact,  it  don't  smell  very  strong; 
My  mind  's  tu  fair  to  lose  its  balance 

An'  say  wich  party  hez  most  sense  ; 
There  may  be  folks  o'  greater  talence 

Thet  can't  set  stiddier  on  the  fence. 

I 'm  an  eclectic  ;  ez  to  choosin' 

'Twixt  this  an'   thet,  1  'm  plaguy 
lawth  ; 

I  leave  a  side  thet  looks  like  losin', 
But  (wile  there 's  doubt)  I  stick  to 
both ; 

I  stan'  upon  the  Constitution, 

Ez  preudunt  statesmun  say,  who 've 
planned 

A  way  to  git  the  most  profusion 

0'  chances  ez  to  ware  they  '11  stand. 

Ez  fer  the  war,  I  go  agin  it,  — 

I  mean  to  say  I  kind  o'  du,  — 
Thet  is,  I  mean  thet,  bein'  in  it, 

The  best  way  wuz  to  fight  it  thru  ; 
Not  but  wut  abstract  war  is  horrid, 

I  sign  to  thet  with  all  my  heart,  — 
But  civlyzation  doos  git  forrid 

Sometimes  upon  a  powder-cart. 

About  thet  darned  Proviso  matter 

I  never  hed  a  grain  o'  doubt, 
Nor  1  aint  one  my  sense  to  scatter 

So  'st  no  one  could  n't  pick  it  out ; 
My  love  fer  North  an'  South  is  equil, 

So  I  '11  jest  answer  plump  an'  frank, 
No  matter  wut  may  be  the  sequil,  — 

Yes,  Sir,  I  am  agin  a  Bank. 

Ez  to  the  answerin'  o'  questions, 

I 'm  an  off  ox  at  bein'  druv, 
Though  I  aint  one  thet  ary  test  shuns 

'11  give  our  folks  a  h  el  pin'  shove  ; 
Kind  o'  promiscoous  I  go  it 

Fer  the  holl  country,  an'  the  ground 


192 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


I  take,  ez  nigh  ez  I  can  show  it, 
Is  pooty  gen'ally  all  round. 

I  don't  appruve  o'  givin'  pledges  ; 

You 'd  ough'  to  leave  a  feller  free, 
An'  not  go  knockin'  out  the  wedges 

To  ketch  his  fingers  in  the  tree  ; 
Pledges  air  awfle  breachy  cattle 

Thet  preudunt  farmers  don't  turn 
out,  — 

Ez  long  'z  the  people  git  their  rattle, 
Wut  is  there  fer  'm  to  grout  about  ? 

Ez  to  the  slaves,  there 's  no  confusion 

In  my  idees  consarniu'  them, — 
/  think  they  air  an  Institution, 

A  sort  of  —  yes,  jest  so,  —  ahem  : 
Do  I  own  any  ?    Of  my  merit 

On  thet  pint  you  yourself  may  jedge  ; 
All  is,  I  never  drink  no  sperit, 

Nor  I  haint  never  signed  no  pledge. 

Ez  to  my  princerples,  I  glory 

In  hevin'  nothin'  o'  the  sort ; 
I  aint  a  Wig,  I  aint  a  Tory, 

I 'm  jest  a  candidate,  in  short ; 
Thet 's  fair  an'  square  an'  parpendicler, 

But,  ef  the  Public  cares  a  fig 
To  hev  me  an'  thin'  in  particler, 

Wy,  I 'm  a  kind  o'  peri-Wig. 

P.  S. 

Ez  we  're  a  sort  o'  privateerin', 

0'  course,  you  know,  it 's  sheer  an' 
sheer, 

An'  there  is  sutthin'  wuth  your  hearin' 
I  '11  mention  in  your  privit  ear ; 

Ef  you  git  me  inside  the  White  House, 
Your  head  with  ile  1  '11  kin'  o'  'nint 

By  gittin'  you  inside  the  Light-house 
Down  to  the  eend  o'  Jaalam  Pint. 

An'  ez  the  North  hez  took  to  brustlin' 
At  bein'  scrouged  frum  off  the  roost, 

I  '11  tell  ye  wut  '11  save  all  tusslin' 
An'  give  our  side  a  harnsome  boost,  — 

Tell  'em  thet  on  the  Slavery  question 
I 'm  right,  although  to  speak  I 'm 
lawth  ; 

This  gives  you  a  safe  pint  to  rest  on, 
An'   leaves   me  frontin'   South  by 
North. 

[And  now  of  epistles  candidatial,  which  are 
of  two  kinds, —  namely,  letters  of  acceptance, 
and  letters  definitive  of  position.  Our  repub- 
lic, on  the  eve  of  an  election,  may  safely  enough 


be  called  a  republic  of  letters.  Epistolary 
composition  becomes  then  an  epidemic,  which 
seizes  one  candidate  after  another,  not  seldom 
cutting  short  the  thread  of  political  life.  It 
has  come  to  such  a  pass,  that  a  party  dreads 
less  the  attacks  of  its  opponents  than  a  letter 
from  its  candidate.  Litera  scripta  manet,  and 
it  will  go  hard  if  something  bad  cannot  be  made 
of  it.  General  Harrison,  it  is  well  understood, 
was  surrounded,  during  his  candidacy,  with  the 
cordon  sanitaire  of  a  vigilance  committee.  No 
prisoner  in  Spielberg  was  ever  more  cautiously 
deprived  of  writing  materials.  The  soot  was 
scraped  carefully  from  the  chimney-places  ;  out- 
posts of  expert  rifle-shooters  rendered  it  sure 
death  for  any  goose  (who  came  clad  in  feathers) 
to  approach  within  a  certain  limited  distance 
of  North  Bend  ;  and  all  domestic  fowls  about 
the  premises  were  reduced  to  the  condition  of 
Plato's  original  man.  By  these  precautions 
the  General  was  saved.  Parva  componere  mag- 
nis,  I  remember,  that,  when  party-spirit  once 
ran  high  among  my  people,  upon  occasion  of 
the  choice  of  a  new  deacon,  I,  having  my  pref- 
erences, yet  not  caring  too  openly  to  express 
them,  made  use  of  an  innocent  fraud  to  bring 
about  that  result  which  I  deemed  most  desira- 
ble. My  stratagem  was  no  other  than  the 
throwing  a  copy  of  the  Complete  Letter-Writer 
in  the  way  of  the  candidate  whom  I  wished  to 
defeat.  He  caught  the  iufection,  and  addressed 
a  short  note  to  his  constituents,  in  which  the 
opposite  party  detected  so  many  and  so  grave 
improprieties  (he  had  modelled  it  upon  the 
letter  of  a  young  lady  accepting  a  proposal  of 
marriage),  that  he  not  only  lost  his  election,  but, 
falling  under  a  suspicion  of  Sabellianism  and  I 
know  not  what  (the  widow  Endive  assured  me 
that  he  was  a  Paralipomenon,  to  her  certain 
knowledge),  was  forced  to  leave  the  town. 
Thus  it  is  that  the  letter  killeth. 

The  object  which  candidates  propose  to 
themselves  in  writing  is  to  convey  no  meaning 
at  all.  And  here  is  a  quite  unsuspected  pitfall 
into  which  they  successively  plunge  headlong. 
For  it  is  precisely  in  such  cryptographies  that 
mankind  are  prone  to  seek  for  and  find  a  won- 
derful amount  and  variety  of  significance. 
Omne  ignotum  pro  mirifico.  How  do  we  admire 
at  the  antique  world  striving  to  crack  those 
oracular  nuts  from  Delphi,  Hammon,  and  else- 
where, in  only  one  of  which  can  I  so  much  as 
surmise  that  any  kernel  had  ever  lodged  ;  that, 
namely,  wherein  Apollo  confessed  that  he  was 
mortal.  One  Didymus  is,  moreover,  related  to 
have  written  six  thousand  books  on  the  single 
subject  of  grammar,  a  topic  rendered  only  more 
tenebrific  by  the  labors  of  his  successors,  and 
which  seems  still  to  possess  an  attraction  for  au- 
thors in  proportion  as  they  can  make  nothing  of 
it.  A  singular  loadstone  for  theologians,  also, 
is  the  Beast  in  the  Apocalypse,  whereof,  in  the 
course  of  my  studies,  I  have  noted  two  hun- 
dred and  three  several  interpretations,  each 
lethiferal  to  all  the  rest.  Non  nostrum,  est  tan- 
tas  componere  lites,  yet  I  have  myself  ventured 
upon  a  two  hundred  and  fourth,  which  I  em- 
bodied in  a  discourse  preached  on  occasion  of 
the  demise  of  the  late  usurper,  Napoleon  Bona- 
parte, and  which  quieted,  in  a  large  measure, 
the  minds  of  my  people.  It  is  true  that  my 
views  on  this  important  point  were  ardently 
controverted  by  Mr.  Shearjashub  Holden,  the 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


193 


then  preceptor  of  our  academy,  and  in  other 
particulars  a  very  deserving  and  sensible 
young  man,  though  possessing  a  somewhat 
limited  knowledge  of  the  Greek  tongue.  But 
his  heresy  struck  down  no  deep  root,  and,  he 
having  been  lately  removed  by  the  hand  of 
Providence,  I  had  the  satisfaction  of  reaffirm- 
ing my  cherished  sentiments  in  a  sermon 
preached  upon  the  Lord's  day  immediately  suc- 
ceeding his  funeral.  This  might  seem  like  tak- 
ing an  unfair  advantage,  did  I  not  add  that  he 
had  made  provision  in  his  last  will  (being  celi- 
bate) for  the  publication  of  a  posthumous  trac- 
tate in  support  of  his  own  dangerous  opinions. 

I  know  of  nothing  in  our  modern  times  which 
approaches  so  nearly  to  the  ancient  oracle  as 
the  letter  of  a  Presidential  candidate.  Now, 
among  the  Greeks,  the  eating  of  beans  was 
strictly  forbidden  to  all  such  as  had  it  in  mind 
to  consult  those  expert  amphibologists,  and 
this  same  prohibition  on  the  part  of  Pythag- 
oras to  his  disciples  is  understood  to  imply 
an  abstinence  from  politics,  beans  having  been 
used  as  ballots.  That  other  explication,  quod 
videlicet  sensus  eo  cibo  obtundi  existimaret, 
though  supported  pugnis  et  calcibus  by  many 
of  the  learned,  and  not  wanting  the  counte- 
nance of  Cicero,  is  confuted  by  the  larger  expe- 
rience of  New  England.  On  the  whole,  I  think 
it  safer  to  apply  here  the  rule  of  interpretation 
which  now  generally  obtains  in  regard  to  an- 
tique cosmogonies,  myths,  fables,  proverbial 
expressions,  and  knotty  points  generally,  which 
is,  to  find  a  common-sense  meaning,  and  then 
select  whatever  can  be  imagined  the  most  oppo- 
site thereto.  In  this  way  we  arrive  at  the  con- 
clusion, that  the  Greeks  objected  to  the  ques- 
tioning of  candidates.  And  very  properly,  if, 
as  I  conceive,  the  chief  point  be  not  to  dis- 
cover what  a  person  in  that  position  is,  or  what 
he  will  do,  but  whether  he  can  be  elected.  Vos 
exemplaria  Grceca  nocturna  versate  manu,  versate 
diumia. 

But,  since  an  imitation  of  the  Greeks  in 
this  particular  (the  asking  of  questions  being 
one  chief  privilege  of  freemen)  is  hardly  to  be 
hoped  for,  and  our  candidates  will  answer, 
whether  they  are  questioned  or  not,  I  would 
recommend  that  these  ante-electionary  dia- 
logues should  be  carried  on  by  symbols,  as 
were  the  diplomatic  correspondences  of  the 
Scythians  and  Macrobii,  or  confined  to  the  lan- 
guage of  signs,  like  the  famous  interview  of 
Panurge  and  Goatsnose.  A  candidate  might 
then  convey  a  suitable  reply  to  all  committees 
of  inquiry  by  closing  one  eye,  or  by  presenting 
them  with  a  phial  of  Egyptian  darkness  to  be 
speculated  upon  by  their  respective  constituen- 
cies. These  answers  would  be  susceptible  of 
whatever  retrospective  construction  the  exi- 
gencies of  the  political  campaign  might  seem 
to  demand,  and  the  candidate  could  take  his 
position  on  either  side  of  the  fence  with  entire 
consistency.  Or,  if  letters  must  be  written, 
profitable  use  might  be  made  of  the  Dighton 
rock  hieroglyphic  or  the  cuneiform  script, 
every  fresh  decipherer  of  which  is  enabled  to 
educe  a  different  meaning,  whereby  a  sculp- 
tured stone  or  two  supplies  us,  and  will  prob- 
ably continue  to  supply  posterity,  with  a  very 
vast  and  various  body  of  authentic  history. 
For  even  the  briefest  epistle  in  the  ordinary 
chirography  is  dangerous.    There  is  scarce  any 


style  so  compressed  that  superfluous  words 
may  not  be  detected  in  it.  A  severe  critic 
might  curtail  that  famous  brevity  of  Csesar's  by 
two  thirds,  drawing  his  pen  through  the  super- 
erogatory veni  and  vidi.  Perhaps,  after  all, 
the  surest  footing  of  hope  is  to  be  found  in  the 
rapidly  increasing  tendency  to  demand  less  and 
less  of  qualification  in  candidates.  Already 
have  statesmanship,  experience,  and  the  pos- 
session (nay,  the  profession,  even)  of  principles 
been  rejected  as  superfluous,  and  may  not  the 
patriot  reasonably  hope  that  the  ability  to  write 
will  follow?  At  present,  there  may  be  death 
in  pot-hooks  as  well  as  pots,  the  loop  of  a  let- 
ter may  suffice  for  a  bow-string,  and  all  the 
dreadful  heresies  of  Antislavery  may  lurk  in  a 
flourish.  —  H.  W.] 


No.  VIII. 

A  SECOND  LETTER  FROM  B.  SAWIN,  ESQ. 

[In  the  following  epistle,  we  behold  Mr. 
Sawin  returning,  a  miles  emeritus,  to  the  bosom 
of  his  family.  Quantum  mutatus !  The  good 
Father  of  us  all  had  doubtless  intrusted  to  the 
keeping  of  this  child  of  his  certain  faculties  of 
a  constructive  kind.  He  had  put  in  him  a 
share  of  that  vital  force,  the  nicest  economy 
of  every  minute  atom  of  which  is  necessary 
to  the  perfect  development  of  Humanity.  He 
had  given  him  a  brain  and  heart,  and  so  had 
equipped  his  soul  with  the  two  strong  wings  of 
knowledge  and  love,  whereby  it  can  mount  to 
hang  its  nest  under  the  eaves  of  heaven.  And 
this  child,  so  dowered,  he  had  intrusted  to  the 
keeping  of  his  vicar,  the  State.  How  stands 
the  account  of  that  stewardship  ?  The  State, 
or  Society  (call  her  by  what  name  you  will), 
had  taken  no  manner  of  thought  of  him  till  she 
saw  him  swept  out  into  the  street,  the  pitiful 
leavings  of  last  night's  debauch,  with  cigar- 
ends,  lemon-parings,  tobacco-quids,  slops,  vile 
stenches,  and  the  whole  loathsome  next-morn- 
ing of  the  bar-room, — an  own  child  of  the 
Almighty  God  !  I  remember  him  as  he  was 
brought  to  be  christened,  a  ruddy,  rugged 
babe ;  and  now  there  he  wallows,  reeking, 
seething,  —  the  dead  corpse,  not  of  a  man,  but 
of  a  soul,  —  a  putrefying  lump,  horrible  for  the 
life  that  is  in  it.  Comes  the  wind  of  heaven, 
that  good  Samaritan,  and  parts  the  hair  upon 
his  forehead,  nor  is  too  nice  to  kiss  those 
parched,  cracked  lips  ;  the  morning  opens  upon 
him  her  eyes  full  of  pitying  sunshine,  the  sky 
yearns  down  to  him,  —  and  there  he  lies  fer- 
menting. O  sleep  !  let  me  not  profane  thy  holy 
name  by  calling  that  stertorous  unconscious- 
ness a  slumber !  By  and  by  comes  along  the 
State,  God's  vicar.  Does  she  say,  —  "  My  poor, 
forlorn  foster-child !  Behold  here  a  force 
which  I  will  make  dig  and  plant  and  build  for 
me  "  ?  Not  so,  but,  —  "  Here  is  a  recruit  ready- 
made  to  my  hand,  a  piece  of  destroying  energy 
lying  unprofitably  idle."  So  she  claps  an  ugly 
gray  suit  on  him,  puts  a  musket  in  his  grasp, 
and  sends  him  off,  with  Gubernatorial  and 
other  godspeeds,  to  do  duty  as  a  destroyer. 

I  made  one  of  the  crowd  at  the  last  Mechan- 


13 


194 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


ics'  Fair,  and,  with  the  rest,  stood  gazing  in 
wonder  at  a  perfect  machine,  with  its  soul  of 
fire,  its  boiler-heart  that  sent  the  hot  blood 
pulsing  along  the  iron  arteries,  and  its  thews  of 
steel.  And  while  I  was  admiring  the  adapta- 
tion of  means  to  end,  the  harmonious  involu- 
tions of  contrivance,  and  the  never-bewildered 
complexity,  I  saw  a  grimed  and  greasy  fellow, 
the  imperious  engine's  lackey  and  drudge, 
whose  sole  office  was  to  let  fall,  at  intervals,  a 
drop  or  two  of  oil  upon  a  certain  joint.  Then 
my  soul  said  within  me,  See  there  a  piece  of 
mechanism  to  which  that  other  you  marvel  at 
is  but  as  the  rude  first  effort  of  a  child,  —  a 
force  which  not  merely  suffices  to  set  a  few 
wheels  in  motion,  but  which  can  send  an  im- 
pulse all  through  the  infinite  future,  —  a  con- 
trivance, not  for  turning  out  pins,  or  stitching 
buttonholes,  but  for  making  Hamlets  and 
Lears.  And  yet  this  thing  of  iron  shall  be 
housed,  waited  on,  guarded  from  rust  and  dust, 
and  it  shall  be  a  crime  but  so  much  as  to 
scratch  it  with  a  pin  ;  while  the  other,  with  its 
fire  of  God  in  it,  shall  be  buffeted  hither  and 
thither,  and  finally  sent  carefully  a  thousand 
miles  to  be  the  target  for  a  Mexican  cannon- 
ball.  Unthrifty  Mother  State !  My  heart 
burned  within  me  for  pity  and  indignation,  and 
I  renewed  this  covenant  with  my  own  soul,  — 
In  aliis  mansuetus  ero,  at,  in  blasphemiis  con- 
tra Christum,  non  ita.  — H.  W.] 

I  spose  you  wonder  ware  I  be  ;  I  can't 

tell,  fer  the  soul  o'  me, 
Exacly  ware  I  be  myself,  —  meanin'  by 

thet  the  holl  o'  me. 
Wen  I  left  hum,  I  lied  two  legs,  an'  they 

worn't  bad  ones  neither, 
(The  scaliest  trick  they  ever  played  wuz 

bringin'  on  me  hither,) 
Now  one  on  'em 's  I  dunno  ware  ;  — 

they  thought  I  wuz  adyin', 
An'  sawed  it  off  because  they  said 't  wuz 

kin'  o'  mortifyin'  ; 
I 'm  willin'  to  believe  it  wuz,  an'  yit  I 

don't  see,  nuther, 
Wy  one  shoud  take  to  feelin'  cheap  a 

minnit  sooner  'n  t'  other, 
Sence  both  wuz  equilly  to  blame ;  but 

things  is  ez  they  be ; 
It  took  on  so  they  took  it  off,  an'  thet 's 

enough  fer  me  : 
There 's  one  good  thing,  though,  to  be 

said  about  my  wooden  new  one,  — 
The  liquor  can't  git  into  it  ez 't  used  to 

in  the  true  one; 
So  it  saves  drink  ;  an'  then,  besides,  a 

feller  could  n't  beg 
A  gretter  blessin  then  to  hev  one  oilers 

sober  peg  ; 
It 's  true  a  chap 's  in  want  o'  two  fer  fol- 

lerin'  a  drum, 
But  all  the  march  1'  m  up  to  now  is  jest 

to  Kingdom  Come. 


I  've  lost  one  eye,  but  thet 's  a  loss  it 's 

easy  to  supply 
Out  o'  the  glory  that  I 've  gut,  fer  thet 

is  all  my  eye  ; 
An'  one  is  big  enough,  I  guess,  by  dili- 
gently usin'  it, 
To  see  all  I  shall  ever  git  by  way  o'  pay 

fer  losin'  it ; 
OfFcers  I  notice,  who  git  paid  fer  all 

our  thumps  an'  kickins, 
Du  wal  by  keepin'  single  eyes  arter  the 

fattest  pickins  ; 
So,  ez  the  eye 's  put  fairly  out,  I  '11  larn 

to  go  without  it, 
An'  not  allow  myself  to  be  no  gret  put 

out  about  it. 
Now,  le'  me  see,  thet  is  n't  all  ;  I  used, 

'fore  leavin'  Jaalam, 
To  count  things  on  my  finger-eends,  but 

sutthin'  seems  to  ail  'em  : 
Ware 's  my  left  hand  ?    0,  darn  it,  yes, 

I  recollect  wut 's  come  on 't  ; 
I  haint  no  left  arm  but  my  right,  an* 

thet 's  gut  jest  a  thumb  on 't ; 
It  aint  so  hendy  ez  it  wuz  to  cal'late  a 

sum  on  't. 

I  'vehed  some  ribs  broke, — six  (I  brieve), 

—  I  haint  kep'  no  account  on  'em  ; 
Wen  pensions  git  to  be  the  talk,  I  '11 

settle  the  amount  on  'em. 
An'  now  I'm  speakin'  about  ribs,  it  kin' 

o'  brings  to  mind 
One  thet  I  could  n't  never  break,  —  the 

one  I  lef '  behind  ; 
Ef  you  should  see  her,  jest  clear  out  the 

spout  o'  your  invention 
An'  pour  the  longest  sweetnin'  in  about 

an  annooal  pension, 
An'  kin'  o'  hint  (in  case,  you  know,  the 

critter  should  refuse  to  be 
Consoled)  I  aint  so  'xpensive  now  to  keep 

ez  wut  I  used  to  be ; 
There 's  one  arm  less,  ditto  one  eye,  an' 

then  the  leg  thet 's  wooden 
Can  be  took  off  an'  sot  away  wenever 

ther 's  a  puddin'. 

I  spose  you  think  I'm  comin'  back  ez 

opperlunt  ez  thunder, 
With  shiploads  o'  gold  images  an'  varus 

sorts  o'  plunder  ; 
Wal,  'fore  I  vullinteered,  I  thought  this 

country  wuz  a  sort  o' 
Canaan,  a  reg'lar  Promised  Land  no  win' 

with  rum  an'  water, 
Ware  propaty  growed  up  like  time, 

without  no  cultivation, 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


195 


An*  gold  wuz  dug  ez  taters  be  among  our 

Yankee  nation, 
Ware  nateral  advantages  were  pufficly 

amazin', 

"Ware  every  rock  there  wuz  about  with. 

precious  stuns  wuz  blazin', 
Ware  mill-sites  tilled  the  country  up  ez 

thick  ez  you  could  cram  em' 
An'  desput  rivers  run  about  a  beggin' 

folks  to  dam  'em  ; 
Then  there  were    meetinhouses,  tu, 

chock  ful  o'  gold  an'  silver 
Thet  you  could  take,  an'  no  one  could  n't 

hand  ye  in  no  bill  fer  ;  — 
Thet's  wut  I  thought  afore  I  went, 

thet 's  wut  them  fellers  told  us 
Thet  stayed  to  hum  an'  speechified  an' 

to  the  buzzards  sold  us  ; 
I  thought  thet  gold-mines  could  be  gut 

cheaper  than  Chiny  asters, 
An'  see  myself  acomin'  back  like  sixty 

Jacob  Astors  ; 
Bat  sech  idees  soon  melted  down  an' 

did  n't  leave  a  grease-spot ; 
I  vow  my  holl  sheer  o'  the  spiles  would  n't 

come  nigh  a  V  spot ; 
Although,  most  any  wares  we  've  ben, 

you  need  n't  break  no  locks, 
Nor  run  no  kin'  o'  risks,  to  fill  your 

pocket  full  o'  rocks. 
I  'xpect  I  mentioned  in  my  last  some  o' 

the  nateral  feeturs 
O'  this  all-fiered  buggy  hole  in  th'  way 

o'  awfle  creeturs, 
But  I  fergut  to  "name  (new  things  to 

speak  on  so  abounded) 
How  one  day  you  '11  most  die  o'  thust, 

an'  'fore  the  next  git  drownded. 
The  clymit  seems  to  me  jest  like  a  tea- 
pot made  o'  pewter 
Our  Prudence  hed,  thet  would  n't  pour 

(all  she  could  du)  to  suit  her  ; 
Fust  place  the  leaves  'ould  choke  the 

spout,  so 's  not  a  drop  'ou.ld  dreen 

out, 

Then  Prude  'ould  tip  an'  tip  an'  tip,  till 

the  holl  kit  bust  clean  out, 
The  kiver-hinge-pin  bein'  lost,  tea-leaves 

an'  tea  an'  kiver 
'ould  all  come  down  Jcersivosh  /  ez  though 

the  dam  broke  in  a  river. 
Jest  so  'tis  here;  holl  months  there 

aint  a  day  o'  rainy  weather, 
An'  jest  ez  th'  officers  'ould  be  a  layin' 

heads  together 
Ez  t'  how  they 'd  mix  their  drink  at  sech 

a  milingtary  deepot,  — 


'T  would  pour  ez  though  the  lid  wuz  off 

the  everlastin'  teapot. 
The  cons' quence  is,  thet  I  shall  take, 

wen  I 'm  allowed  to  leave  here, 
One  piece  o'  propaty  along,  an'  thet's 

the  shakin'  fever  ; 
It 's  reggilar  employment,  though,  an' 

thet  aint  thought  to  harm  one, 
Nor 't  aint  so  tiresome  ez  it  wuz  with 

t'  other  leg  an'  arm  on  ; 
An'  it 's  a  consolation,  tu,  although  it 

doos  n't  pay, 
To  hev  it  said  you  're  some  gret  shakes 

in  any  kin'  o'  way. 
'T  worn't  very  long,  I  tell  ye  wut,  I 

thought  o'  fortin-makin',  — 
One  day  a  reg'lar  shiver- de-freeze,  an' 

next  ez  good  ez  bakin', — 
One  day  abrilin'  in  the   sand,  then 

smoth'rin'  in  the  mashes,  — 
Git  up  all  sound,  be  put  to  bed  a  mess 

b'  hacks  an'  smashes. 
But  then,  thinks  I,  at  any  rate  there 's 

glory  to  be  hed,  — 
Thet's  an  investment,  arter  all,  thet 

may  n't  turn  out  so  bad ; 
But  somehow,  wen  we 'd  fit  an'  licked, 

I  oilers  found  the  thanks 
Gut  kin'  o'  lodged  afore  they  come  ez 

low  down  ez  the  ranks  ; 
The  Gin'rals  gut  the  biggest  sheer,  the 

Cunnles  next,  an'  so  on,  — 
W e  never  gut  a  blasted  mite  o'  glory  ez 

I  know  on  ; 
An'  spose  we  hed,  I  wonder  how  you  're 

goin'  to  contrive  its 
Division  so 's  to  give  a  piece  to  twenty 

thousand  privits  ; 
Ef  you  should  multiply  by  ten  the  por- 
tion o'  the  brav'st  one, 
You  would  n't  git  more  'n  half  enough  to 

speak  of  on  a  grave-stun  ; 
We  git  the  licks,  —  we  're  jest  the  grist 

thet 's  put  into  War's  hoppers  ; 
Leftenants  is  the  lowest  grade  thet  helps 

pick  up  the  coppers. 
It  may  suit  folks  thet  go  agin  a  body 

with  a  soul  in  't, 
An'  aint  contented  with  a  hide  without 

a  bagnet  hole  in 't ; 
But  glory  is  a  kin'  o'  thing  I  sha'  n't 

pursue  no  furder, 
Coz  thet  's  the  offcers   parquisite,  — 

yourn's  on'y  jest  the  murder. 

Wal,  arter  I  gin  glory  up,  thinks  I  at 
least  there 's  one 


19G 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


Thing  in  the  bills  we  aint  hed  yit,  an' 

thet's  the  glorious  fun  ; 
Ef  once  we  git  to  Mexico,  we  fairly  may 

persume  we 
All  clay  an'  night  shall  revel  in  the  halls 

o'  Montezumy. 
I  '11  tell  ye  wut  my  revels  wuz,  an'  see 

how  you  would  like  'em  ; 
We  never  gut  inside  the  hall  :  the  nigh- 

est  ever  /  come 
Wuz  stan'in'  sentry  in  the  sun  (an',  fact, 

it  seemed  a  cent'ry) 
A  ketchin'  smells  o'  biled  an'  roast  thet 

come  out  thru  the  entry, 
An'  hearin'  ez  I  sweltered  thru  my 

passes  an'  repasses, 
A  rat-tat-too   o'  knives  an'  forks,  a 

clinkty-clink  o'  glasses  : 
I  can't  tell  off  the  bill  o'  fare  the  Gin- 

rals  hed  inside  ; 
All  I  know  is,  thet  out  o'  doors  a  pair 

o'  soles  wuz  fried, 
An'  not  a  hunderd  miles  away  frum 

ware  this  child  wuz  posted, 
A  Massachusetts  citizen  wUz  baked  an' 

biled  an'  roasted  ; 
The  on'y  thing  like  revellin'  thet  ever 

come  to  me 
Wuz  bein'  routed  out  o'  sleep  by  thet 

darned  revelee. 

They  say  the  quarrel 's  settled  now ;  fer 
my  part  I 've  some  doubt  on 't, 

't  '11  take  more  fish -skin  than  folks  think 
to  take  the  rile  clean  out  on 't ; 

At  any  rate  I 'm  so  used  up  I  can't  do 
no  more  fightin', 

The  on'y  chance  thet 's  left  to  me  is  pol- 
itics or  writin'  ; 

Now,  ez  the  people 's  gut  to  hev  a  mil- 
ingtary  man, 

An'  I  aint  nothin'  else  jest  now,  I 've  hit 
upon  a  plan  ; 

The  can'idatin'  line,  you  know,  'ould 
suit  me  to  a  T, 

An'  ef  I  lose,  't  wunt  hurt  my  ears  to 
lodge  another  flea  ; 

So  I  '11  set  up  ez  can'idate  fer  any  kin' 
o'  office, 

(I  mean  fer  any  thet  includes  good  easy- 
cheers  an'  soffies  ; 

Fer  ez  tu  runnin'  fer  a  place  ware  work 's 
the  time  o'.day, 

You  know  thet 's  wut  I  never  did,  — 
except  the  other  way;) 

Ef  it  's  the  Presidential  cheer  fer  wich 
I  'd  better  run, 


Wut  two  legs  anywares  about  could  keep 

up  with  my  one  ? 
There  aint  no  kin'  o'  quality  in  can'i- 

dates,  it 's  said, 
So  useful  ez  a  wooden  leg,  —  except  a 

wooden  head  ; 
There  's  nothin'  aint  so  poppylar —  (wj, 

it 's  a  parfect  sin 
To  think  wut  Mexico  hez  paid  fer  Santy 

Anny's  pin ;)  — 
Then  I  haint  gut  no  princerples,  an', 

sence  I  wuz  knee-high, 
I  never  did  hev  any  gret,  ez  you  can 

testify; 

I  'm  a  decided  peace-man,  tu,  an'  go 

agin  the  war, — 
Fer  now  the  holl  on 't 's  gone  an'  past, 

wut  is  there  to  go  for  ? 
Ef,  wile  you  're  'lectioneerin'  round, 

some  curus  chaps  should  beg 
To  know  my  views  o'  state  affairs,  jest 

answer  wooden  leg  ! 
Ef  they  aint  settisfied  with  thet,  an'  kin' 

o'  pry  an'  doubt 
An'  ax  fer  sutthin'  deffynit,  jest  say 

ONE  EYE  PUT  OUT  ! 

Thet  kin'  o'  talk  I  guess  you  '11  find  '11 

answer  to  a  charm, 
An'  wen  you  're  druv  tu  nigh  the  wall, 

hoi'  up  my  missin'  arm  ; 
Ef  they  should  nose  round  fer  a  pledge, 

put  on  a  vartoous  look 
An'  tell  'em  thet 's  percisely  wut  I  never 

gin  nor  —  took  ! 

Then  you  can  call  me  "  Timbertoes,"  — 
thet 's  wut  the  people  likes  ; 

Sutthin'  combinin'  morril  truth  with 
phrases  sech  ez  strikes  ; 

Some  say  the  people 's  fond  o'  this,  or 
thet,  or  wut  you  please,  — 

I  tell  ye  wut  the  people  want  is  jest  cor- 
rect idees  ; 

"Old  Timbertoes,"  you  see,  's  a  creed 
it 's  safe  to  be  quite  bold  on, 

There 's  nothin'  in  't  the  other  side  can 
any  ways  git  hold  on  ; 

It 's  a  good  tangible  idee,  a  sutthin'  to 
embody 

Thet  valooable  class  o'  men  who  look 

thru  brandy -toddy ; 
It  gives  a  Party  Platform,  tu,  jest  level 

with  the  mind 
Of  all  right-thinkin',  honest  folks  thet 

mean  to  go  it  blind  ; 
Then  there  air  other  good  hooraws  to 

dror  on  ez  you  need  'em, 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


197 


Sech  ez  the  one-eyed  Slarterer,  the 

BLOODY  BlRDOFREDUM  I 

Them 's  wut  takes  hold  o'  folks  thet 
think,  ez  well  ez  o'  the  masses, 

An'  makes  you  sartin  o'  the  aid  o'  good 
men  of  all  classes. 

There 's  one  thing  I 'm  in  doubt  about ; 

in  order  to  be  Presidunt, 
It 's  absolutely  ne'ssary  to  be  a  Southern 

residunt ; 

The  Constitution  settles  thet,  an'  also 

thet  a  feller 
Must  own  a  nigger  o'  some  sort,  jet  black; 

or  brown,  or  yeller. 
Now  I  haintno  objections  agin  particklar 

climes, 

Nor  agin  ownin'  anythin'  (except  the 

truth  sometimes), 
But,  ez  I  haint  no  capital,  up  there 

among  ye,  maybe, 
You  might  raise  funds  enough  fer  me  to 

buy  a  low-priced  baby, 
An'  then  to  suit  the  No' them  folks,  who 

feel  obleeged  to  say 
They  hate  an'  cuss  the  very  thing  they 

vote  fer  every  day, 
Say  you  're  assured  I  go  full  butt  fer 

Libbaty's  diffusion 
An'  made  the  purchis  on'y  jest  to  spite 

the  Institootion ;  — 
But,  golly  !  there 's  the  currier's  hoss 

upon  the  pavement  pawm'  ! 
I  '11  be  more  'xplicit  in  my  next. 
Yourn, 

BlRDOFREDUM  SAWIN. 

[We  have  now  a  tolerably  fair  chance  of  es- 
timating how  the  balance-sheet  stands  between 
our  returned  volunteer  and  glory.  Supposing 
the  entries  to  be  set  down  on  both  sides  of  the 
account  in  fractional  parts  of  one  hundred,  we 
shall  arrive  at  something  like  the  following  re- 
sult :  — 

B.  Sawin,  Esq.,  in  account  with  (Blank) 
Glory. 

Cr.  Dr. 
By  loss  of  one  leg,    20  To  one  675th  three 
"   do.     one  arm,  15 
"   do.  four  fingers,  5 
"   do.  one  eye  .    .  10 


the  breaking  of 
six  ribs,    .    .  t> 

having  served 
under  Colonel 
Cushing  one 
month, ...  44 


100 


cheers  in  Fan- 
euil  Hall,  .  .  30 
do.  do.  on  occa- 
sion of  presenta- 
tion of  sword  to 
Colonel  Wright,  25 
one  suit  of  gray 
clothes  (ingen- 
iously unbecom- 
ing)    ....  15 

70 


Cr.  Dr. 
Brought  forward  100   Brought  forward  70 
To  musical  enter- 
tainments (drum 
and     fife  six 
months),  ...  5 
"  one  dinner  after 

return  ....  1 
"  chance  of  pen- 
sion, ....  1 
"  privilege  of 
drawing  long- 
bow during  rest 
of  natural  life,  23 


E.  E. 


100 


100 


It  would  appear  that  Mr.  Sawin  found  the 
actual  feast  curiously  the  reverse  of  the  bill 
of  fare  advertised  in  Faneuil  Hall  and  other 
places.  His  primary  object  seems  to  have 
been  the  making  of  his  fortune.  Qucerenda 
pecunia  primum,  virtus  post  nummos.  He 
hoisted  sail  for  Eldorado,  and  shipwrecked  on 
Point  Tribulation.  Quid  non  mortalia  pectora 
cogis,  auri  sacra  fames  ?  The  speculation  has 
sometimes  crossed  my  mind,  in  that  dreary 
interval  of  drought  which  intervenes  between 
quarterly  stipendiary  showers,  that  Provi- 
dence, by  the  creation  of  a  money-tree,  might 
have  simplified  wonderfully  the  sometimes  per- 
plexing problem  of  human  life.  We  read  of 
bread-trees,  the  butter  for  which  lies  ready- 
churned  in  Irish  bogs.  Milk-trees  we  are  as- 
sured of  in  South  America,  and  stout  Sir  John 
Hawkins  testifies  to  water-trees  in  the  Cana- 
ries. Boot-trees  bear  abundantly  in  Lynn  and 
elsewhere  ;  and  I  have  seen,  in  the  entries  of 
the  wealthy,  hat-trees  with  a  fair  show  of  fruit. 
A  family-tree  I  once  cultivated  myself,  and 
found  therefrom  but  a  scanty  yield,  and  that 
quite  tasteless  and  innutritious.  Of  trees  bear- 
ing men  we  are  not  without  examples  ;  as  those 
in  the  park  of  Louis  the  Eleventh  of  France. 
Who  has  forgotten,  moreover,  that  olive-tree, 
growing  in  the  Athenian's  back-garden,  with  its 
strange  uxorious  crop,  for  the  general  propaga- 
tion of  which,  as  of  a  new  and  precious  variety, 
the  philosopher  Diogenes,  hitherto  uninterested 
in  arboriculture,  was  so  zealous  ?  In  the  sylva 
of  our  own  Southern  States,  the  females  of  my 
family  have  called  my  attention  to  the  china- 
tree.  Not  to  multiply  examples,  I  will  barely 
add  to  my  list  the  birch-tree,  in  the  smaller 
branches  of  which  has  been  implanted  so 
miraculous  a  virtue  for  communicating  the 
Latin  and  Greek  languages,  and  which  may 
well,  therefore,  be  classed  among  the  trees  pro- 
ducing necessaries  of  life,  —  venerabile  donum 
fatalis  virgaz.  That  money-trees  existed  in  the 
golden  age  there  want  not  prevalent  reasons 
for  our  believing.  For  does  not  the  old  prov- 
erb, when  it  asserts  that  money  does  not  grow 
on  every  bush,  imply  a  fortiori  that  there  were 
certain  bushes  which  did  produce  it  ?  Again, 
there  is  another  ancient  saw  to  the  effect  that 
money  is  the  root  of  all  evil.  From  which  two 
adages  it  may  be  safe  to  infer  that  the  afore- 
said species  of  tree  first  degenerated  into  a 
shrub,  then  absconded  underground,  and  final- 
ly, in  our  iron  age,  vanished  altogether.  In 
favorable  exposures  it  may  be  conjectured  that 


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THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


a  specimen  ot  two  survived  to  a  great  age,  as 
in  the  garden  of  the  Hesperides  ;  and,  indeed, 
what  else  could  that  tree  in  the  Sixth  iEneid 
have  been,  with  a  branch  whereof  the  Trojan 
hero  procured  admission  to  a  territory,  for  the 
entering  of  which  money  is  a  surer  passport 
than  to  a  certain  other 'more  profitable  (too) 
foreign  kingdom  ?  Whether  these  speculations 
of  mine  have  any  force  in  them,  or  whether 
they  will  not  rather,  by  most  readers,  be  deemed 
impertinent  to  the  matter  in  hand,  is  a  ques- 
tion which  I  leave  to  the  determination  of  an 
indulgent  posterity.  That  there  were,  in  more 
primitive  and  happier  times,  shops  where 
money  was  sold,  —  and  that,  too,  on  credit  and 
at  a  bargain,  —  I  take  to  be  matter  of  demon- 
stration. For  what  but  a  dealer  in  this  article 
was  that  iEolus  who  supplied  Ulysses  with 
motive-power  for  his  fleet  in  bags  ?  What  that 
Ericus,  King  of  Sweden,  who  is  said  to  have 
kept  the  winds  in  his  cap?  what,  in  more 
recent  times,  those  Lapland  Nomas  who  traded 
in  favorable  breezes?  All  which  will  appear 
the  more  clearly  when  we  consider,  that,  even 
to  this  day,  raising  the  wind  is  proverbial  for 
raising  money,  and  that  brokers  and  banks 
were  invented  by  the  Venetians  at  a  later  pe- 
riod. 

And  now  for  the  improvement  of  tmis  digres- 
sion. I  find  a  parallel  to  Mr.  Sawin's  fortune 
in  an  adventure  of  my  own.  For,  shortly  after 
I  had  first  broached  to  myself  the  before-stated 
natural-historical  and  archaeological  theories, 
as  I  was  passing,  haze  negotia  penitus  mecum 
revolvens,  through  one  of  the  obscure  suburbs 
of  our  New  England  metropolis,  my  eye  was 
attracted  by  these  words  upon  a  sign-board,  — 
Cheap  Cash-Store.  Here  was  at  once  the 
confirmation  of  my  speculations,  and  the  sub- 
stance of  my  hopes.  Here  lingered  the  frag- 
ment of  a  happier  past,  or  stretched  out  the 
first  tremulous  organic  filament  of  a  more  for- 
tunate future.  Thus  glowed  the  distant  Mex- 
ico to  the  eyes  of  Sawin,  as  he  looked  through 
the  dirty  pane  of  the  recruiting-office  window, 
or  speculated  from  the  summit  of  that  mirage- 
Pisgah  which  the  imps  of  the  bottle  are  so 
cunning  in  raising  up.  Already  had  my  Al- 
naschar-fancy  (even  during  that  first  half-be- 
lieving glance)  expended  in  various  useful  direc- 
tions the  funds  to  be  obtained  by  pledging  the 
manuscript  of  a  proposed  volume  of  discourses. 
Already  did  a  clock  ornament  the  tower  of  the 
Jaalam  meeting-house,  a  gift  appropriately, 
but  modestly,  commemorated  in  the  parish  and 
town  records,  both,  for  now  many  years,  kept 
by  myself.  Already  had  my  son  Seneca  com- 
pleted his  course  at  the  University.  Whether, 
for  the  moment,  we  may  not  be  considered  as 
actually  lording  it  over  those  Baratarias  with 
the  viceroyalty  of  which  Hope  invests  us,  and 
whether  we  are  ever  so  warmly  housed  as  in 
our  Spanish  castles,  would  afford  matter  of 
argument.  Enough  that  I  found  that  sign- 
board to  be  no  other  than  a  bait  to  the  trap  of 
a  decayed  grocer.  Nevertheless,  I  bought  a 
pound  of  dates  (getting  short  weight  by  reason 
of  immense  flights  of  harpy  flies  who  pursued 
and  lighted  upon  their  prey  even  in  the  very 
scales),  which  purchase  I  made,  not  only  with 
an  eye  to  the  little  ones  at  home,  but  also  as 
a  figurative  reproof  of  that  too  frequent  habit 
of  my  mind,  which,  forgetting  the  due  order  of 


chronology,  will  often  persuade  me  that  the 
happy  sceptre  of  Saturn  is  stretched  over  this 
Astrsea-forsaken  nineteenth  century. 

Having  glanced  at  the  ledger  of  Glory  under 
the  title  Sawin,  B.,  let  us  extend  our  inves- 
tigations, and  discover  if  that  instructive  vol- 
ume does  not  contain  some  charges  more 
personally  interesting  to  ourselves.  I  think  we 
should  be  more  economical  of  our  resources, 
did  we  thoroughly  appreciate  the  fact,  that, 
whenever  Brother  Jonathan  seems  to  be  thrust- 
ing his  hand  into  his  own  pocket,  he  is,  in  fact, 
picking  ours.  I  confess  that  the  late  muck 
which  the  country  has  been  running  has  mate- 
rially changed  my  views  as  to  the  best  method 
of  raising  revenue.  If,  by  means  of  direct  tax- 
ation, the  bills  for  every  extraordinary  outlay 
were  brought  under  our  immediate  eye,  so  that, 
like  thrifty  housekeepers,  we  could  see  where 
and  how  fast  the  money  was  going,  we  should 
be  less  likely  to  commit  extravagances.  At 
present,  these  things  are  managed  in  such 
a  hugger-mugger  way,  that  we  know  not  what 
we  pay  for ;  the  poor  man  is  charged  as  much 
as  the  rich  ;  and,  while  we  are  saving  and 
scrimping  at  the  spigot,  the  government  is 
drawing  off  at  the  bung.  If  we  could  know 
that  a  part  of  the  money  we  expend  for  tea 
and  coffee  goes  to  buy  powder  and  balls,  and 
that  it  is  Mexican  blood  which  makes  the 
clothes  on  our  backs  more  costly,  it  would  set 
some  of  us  athinking.  During  the  present  fall, 
I  have  often  pictured  to  myself  a  government 
official  entering  my  study  and  handing  me  the 
following  bill :  — 

Washington,  Sept.  30, 1848. 
Rev.  Homer  Wilbur  to  Winch  Sb&mutl, 

Dr. 

To  his  share  of  work  done  in  Mexico  on 
partnership  account,  sundry  jobs, 
as  below. 

"  killing,  maiming,  and  wounding  about 

5,000  Mexicans,      .       .       .  .$2.00 

"  slaughtering  one  woman  carrying  wa- 
ter to  wounded,  10 

"  extra  work  on  two  different  Sabbaths 
(one  bombardment  and  one  as- 
sault), whereby  the  Mexicans 
were  prevented  from  defiling 
themselves  with  the  idolatries  of 


high  mass,  3.50 

"  throwing  an  especially  fortunate  and 
Protestant  bombshell  into  the 
Cathedral  at  Vera  Cruz,  whereby 
several  female  Papists  were  slain 

at  the  altar,  50 

"  his  proportion  of  cash  paid  for  con- 
quered territory,    .       .      .           1. 75 
"         do.    do.  for  conquering  do.     .  1.50 
"  manuring   do.    with   new  superior 
compost  called  "American  Citi- 
zen,"     .  50 

"  extending  the  area  of  freedom  and 

Protestantism,  01 

"glory,  .01 


$9.87 

Immediate  payment  is  requested. 

N.  B.  Thankful  for  former  favors,  U.  S. 
requests  a  continuance  of  patronage.  Orders 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


199 


flXMmted  with  neatness  and  despatch.  Terms 
as  low  as  those  of  any  other  contractor  for  the 
same  kind  and  style  of  work. 

I  can  fancy  the  official  answering  my  look  of 
horror  with, —  "Yes,  Sir,  it  looks  like  a  high 
charge,  Sir ;  but  in  these  days  slaughtering  is 
slaughtering."  Verily,  I  would  that  every  one 
understood  that  it  was  ;  for  it  goes  about  ob- 
taining money  under  the  false  pretence  of  being 
glory.  For  me,  I  have  an  imagination  which 
plays  me  uncomfortable  tricks.  It  happens  to 
me  sometimes  to  see  a  slaughterer  on  his  way 
home  from  his  day's  work,  and  forthwith  my 
imagination  puts  a  cocked-hat  upon  his  head 
and  epaulettes  upon  his  shoulders,  and  sets 
him  up  as  a  candidate  for  the  Presidency.  So, 
also,  on  a  recent  public  occasion,  as  the  place 
assigned  to  the  "Reverend  Clergy"  is  just  be- 
hind that  of  "  Officers  of  the  Army  and  Navy  " 
in  processions,  it  was  my  fortune  to  be  seated 
at  the  dinner-table  over  against  one  of  these 
respectable  persons.  He  was  arrayed  as  (out 
of  his  own  profession)  only  kings,  court-offi- 
cers, and  footmen  are  in  Europe,  and  Indians 
in  America.  Now  what  does  my  over-officious 
imagination  but  set  to  work  upon  him,  strip 
him  of  his  gay  livery,  and  present  hiin  to  me 
coatless,  his  trousers  thrust  into  the  tops  of 
a  pair  of  boots  thick  with  clotted  blood,  and  a 
basket  on  his  arm  out  of  which  lolled  a  gore- 
smeared  axe,  thereby  destroying  my  relish  for 
the  temporal  mercies  upon  the  board  before 
me!  — H.  W.) 


NO.  IX. 


A  THIRD  LETTER  FROM  B.  SAWIN,  ESQ. 

[Upon  the  following  letter  slender  comment 
will  be  needful.  In  what  river  Selemnus  has  Mr. 
Sawin  bathed,  that  he  has  become  so  swiftly 
oblivious  of  his  former  loves  ?  From  an  ardent 
and  (as  befits  a  soldier)  confident  wooer  of  that 
coy  bride,  the  popular  favor,  we  see  him  sub- 
side of  a  sudden  into  the  (I  trust  not  jilted) 
Cincinnatus,  returning  to  his  plough  with  a 
goodly  sized  branch  of  willow  in  his  hand; 
figuratively  returning,  however,  to  a  figurative 
plough,  and  from  no  profound  affection  for  that 
honored  implement  of  husbandry  (for  which, 
indeed,  Mr.  Sawin  never  displayed  any  decided 
predilection),  but  in  order  to  be  gracefully  sum- 
moned therefrom  to  more  congenial  labors.  It 
would  seem  that  the  character  of  the  ancient 
Dictator  had  become  part  of  the  recognized 
stock  of  our  modern  political  comedy,  though, 
as  our  term  of  office  extends  to  a  quadrennial 
length,  the  parallel  is  not  so  minutely  exact  as 
could  be  desired.  It  is  sufficiently  so,  how- 
ever, for  purposes  of  scenic  representation. 
An  humble  cottage  (if  built  of  logs,  the  better) 
forms  the  Arcadian  background  of  the  stage. 
This  rustic  paradise  is  labelled  Ashland,  Ja- 
alam,  North  Bend,  Marshfield,  Kinderhook,  or 
Baton  Rouge,  as  occasion  demands.  Before 
the  door  stands  a  something  with  one  handle 
(the  other  painted  in  proper  perspective), 
which  represents,  in  happy  ideal  vagueness, 
the  plough.    To  this  the  defeated  candidate 


rushes  with  delirious  joy,  welcomed  as  a  father 
by  appropriate  groups  of  happy  laborers,  or 
from  it  the  successful  one  is  torn  with  diffi- 
culty, sustained  alone  by  a  noble  sense  of  pub- 
lic duty.  Only  I  have  observed,  that,  if  the 
scene  be  laid  at  Baton  Rouge  or  Ashland,  the 
laborers  are  kept  carefully  in  the  background, 
and  are  heard  to  shout  from  behind  the  scenes 
in  a  singular  tone  resembling  ululation,  and 
accompanied  by  a  sound  not  unlike  vigorous 
clapping.  This,  however,  may  be  artistically 
in  keeping  with  the  habits  of  the  rustic  popula- 
tion of  those  localities.  The  precise  connection 
between  agricultural  pursuits  and  statesman- 
ship, I  have  not  been  able,  after  diligent 
inquiry,  to  discover.  But,  that  my  investiga- 
tions may  not  be  barren  of  all  fruit,  I  will 
mention  one  curious  statistical  fact,  which  I 
consider  thoroughly  established,  namely,  that 
no  real  fanner  ever  attains  practically  beyond 
a  seat  in  General  Court,  however  theoretically 
qualified  for  more  exalted  station. 

It  is  probable  that  some  other  prospect  has 
been  opened  to  Mr.  Sawin,  and  that  he  has  not 
made  this  great  sacrifice  without  some  definite 
understanding  in  regard  to  a  seat  in  the  cab- 
inet or  a  foreign  mission.  It  may  be  supposed 
that  we  of  Jaalam  were  not  untouched  by  a 
feeling  of  villatic  pride  in  beholding  our  towns- 
man occupying  so  large  a  space  in  the  public 
eye.  And  to  me,  deeply  revolving  the  quali- 
fications necessary  to  a  candidate  in  these  fru- 
gal times,  those  of  Mr.  S.  seemed  peculiarly 
adapted  to  a  successful  campaign.  The  loss  of 
a  leg,  an  arm,  an  eye,  and  four  fingers  reduced 
him  so  nearly  to  the  condition  of  a  vox  et  pi-oz- 
terea  nihil,  that  I  could  think  of  nothing  but 
the  loss  of  his  head  by  which  his  chance  could 
have  been  bettered.  But  since  he  has  chosen 
to  balk  our  suffrages,  we  must  content  our- 
selves with  what  we  can  get,  remembering  lac- 
tams non  esse  dandas,  dum  cardui  sufficiant.  — 
H.  W.] 

I  spose  you  recollect  thet  I  explained 
my  gennle  views 

In  the  last  billet  thet  I  writ,  'way  down 
frum  Veery  Cruze, 

Jest  arter  I'd  a  kind  o'  ben  sponta- 
nously  sot  up 

To  run  unannermously  fer  the  Presiden- 
tial cup ; 

0'  course  it  worn't  no  wish  o'  mine, 

't  wuz  fernely  distressing 
But  poppiler  enthusiasm  gut  so  almighty 

pressin' 

Thet,  though  like  sixty  all  along  I  fumed 

an'  fussed  an'  sorrered, 
There  did  n't  seem  no  ways  to  stop  their 

bringin'.on  me  forrerd  : 
Fact  is,  they  udged  the  matter  so,  I 

could  n't  help  admit  tin' 
The  Father  o'  his  Country's  slfbes  no 

feet  but  mine  'ould  fit  in, 
Besides  the  savin'  o'  the  soles  fer  ages  to 

succeed, 


200 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


Seem'  thet  with  one  wannut  foot,  a  pair 

'd  be  more  'n  I  need  ; 
An',  tell  ye  wut,  them  shoes  '11  want  a 

thund'rin  sight  o'  pat  chin', 
Ef  this  ere  fashion  is  to  last  we 've  gut 

into  o'  hatchin' 
A  pair  o'  second  Washintons  fer  every 

new  election,  — 
Though,  fer  ez  number  one 's  consarned, 

I  don't  make  no  objection. 

I  wuz  agoin'  on  to  say  thet  wen  at  fust  I 
saw 

The  masses  would  stick  to 't  I  wuz  the 

Country's  father-'n-law, 
(They  would  ha'  hed  it  Father,  but  I  told 

'em 't  would  n't  du, 
Coz  thet  wuz  sutthin'  of  a  sort  they 

could  n't  split  in  tu, 
An'  Washinton  hed  hed  the  thing  laid 

fairly  to  his  door, 
Nor  dars  n't  say  't  worn't  his'n,  much 

ez  sixty  year  afore,) 
But 't  aint  no  matter  ez  to  thet ;  wen  I 

wuz  nomernated, 
'T  worn't  natur  but  wut  I  should  feel 

consid'able  elated, 
An'  wile  the  hooraw  o'  the  thing  wuz 

kind  o'  noo  an'  fresh, 
I  thought  our  ticket  would  ha'  caird  the 

country  with  a  resh. 

Sence  I 've  come  hum,  though,  an'  looked 

round,  I  think  I  seem  to  find 
Strong  argimunts  ez  thick  ez  fleas  to 

make  me  change  my  mind ; 
It 's  clear  to  any  one  whose  brain  aint 

fur  gone  in  a  phthisis, 
Thet  hail  Columby's  happy  land  is  goin' 

thru  a  crisis, 
An'  't  would  n't  noways  du  to  hev  the 

people's  mind  distracted 
By  bein'  all  to  once  by  sev'ral  pop'lar 

names  attackted  ; 
'T  would  save  holl  haycartloads  o'  fuss 

an'  three  four  months  o'  jaw, 
Ef  some  illustrous  paytriot  should  back 

out  an'  withdraw  ; 
So,  ez  I  aint  a  crooked  stick,  jest  like  — 

like  ole  (I  swow, 
I  dunno  ez  I  know  his  name) — I  '11  go 

back  to  my  plough. 

"VVenever  an  Amerikin  distinguished  pol- 
itishin 

Begins  to  try  et  wut  they  call  defmin' 
his  posishin, 


Wal,  I,  fer  one,  feel  sure  he  aint  gut 

nothin'  to  define  ; 
It 's  so  nine  cases  out  o'  ten,  but  jest  that 

tenth  is  mine  ; 
And 't  aint  no  more  'n  is  proper  'n'  right 

in  sech  a  sitooation 
To  hint  the  course  you  think  '11  be  the 

savin'  o'  the  nation  ; 
To  funk  right  out  o'  p'lit'eal  strife  aint 

thought  to  be  the  thing, 
Without  you  deacon  ofF  the  toon  you 

want  your  folks  should  sing ; 
So  I  edvise  the  noomrous  friends  thet 's 

in  one  boat  with  me 
To  jest  up  killock,  jam  right  down  their 

helium  hard  a  lee, 
Haul  the  sheets  taut,  an',  laying  out  upon 

the  Suthun  tack, 
Make  fer  the  safest  port  they  can,  wich, 

I  think,  is  Ole  Zack. 

Next  thing  you  '11  want  to  know,  I 

spose,  wut  argimunts  I  seem 
To  see  thet  makes  me  think  this  ere  '11 

be  the  strongest  team  ; 
Fust  place,  I 've  ben  consid'ble  round  in 

bar-rooms  an'  saloons 
Agetherin'  public  sentiment,  'mongst 

Demmercrats  and  Coons, 
An'  't  aint  ve'y  offen  thet  I  meet  a  chap 

but  wut  goes  in 
Fer  Rough  an'  Ready,  fair  an'  square, 

hufs,  taller,  horns,  an'  skin  ; 
I  don't  deny  but  wut,  fer  one,  ez  fur  ez  I 

could  see, 

I  did  n't  like  at  fust  the  Pheladelphy 

noinernee  : 
I  could  ha'  pinted  to  a  man  thet  wuz,  I 

guess,  a  peg 
Higher  than  him,  — a  soger,  tu,  an'  with 

a  wooden  leg ; 
But  every  day  with  more  an'  more  o' 

Taylor  zeal  I 'm  burnin', 
Seein'  wich  way  the  tide  thet  sets  to 

office  is  aturnin' ; 
Wy,  into  Bellers's  we  notched  the  votes 

down  on  three  sticks,  — 
'T  wuz  Birdofredum  one,  Cass  aught,  an' 

Taylor  twenty-six, 
An'  bein'  the  on'y  canderdate  thet  wuz 

upon  the  ground, 
They  said  't  wuz  no  more  'n  right  thet  I 

should  pay  the  drinks  all  round ; 
Ef  I  'd  expected  sech  a  trick,  I  would  n't 

ha'  cut  my  foot 
By  goin'  an'  votin'  fer  myself  like  a  con- 
sumed coot ; 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


201 


It  did  n't  make  no  diff'rence,  though;  I 

wish  I  may  be  cust, 
Ef  Sellers  wuz  n't  slim  enough  to  say  he 

would  n't  trust ! 

Another  pint  thet  influences  the  minds 

o'  sober  jedges 
Is  thet  the  Gin'ral  hez  n't  gut  tied  hand 

an'  foot  with  pledges ; 
He  hez  n't  told  ye  wut  he  is,  an'  so  there 

aint  no  knowin' 
But  wut  he  may  turn  out  to  be  the  best 

there  is  agoin'  ; 
This,  at  the  on'y  spot  thet  pinched,  the 

shoe  directly  eases, 
Coz  every  one  is  free  to  'xpect  percisely 

wut  he  pleases : 
I  want  free-trade ;  you  don't ;  the  Gin- 
'ral is  n't  bound  to  neither  ;  — 
I  vote  my  way  ;  you,  yourn  ;  an'  both 

air  sooted  to  a  T  there. 
Ole  Rough  an'  Ready,  tu,  's  a  "Wig,  but 

without  bein'  ultry 
(He 's  like  a  holsome  hayin'  day,  thet 's 

warm,  but  is  n't  sultry ; 
He 's  jest  wut  I  should  call  myself,  a 

kin'  o'  scratch  ez 't  ware, 
Thet  aint  exacly  all  a  wig  nor  wholly 

your  own  hair  ; 
I 've  ben  a  Wig  three  weeks  myself, 

jest  o'  this  mod'rate  sort, 
An'  don't  find  them  an'  Demmercrats  so 

different  ez  I  thought ; 
They  both  act  pooty  much  alike,  an' 

push  an'  scrouge  an'  cus  ; 
They  're  like  two  pickpockets  in  league 

fer  Uncle  Samwell's  pus  ; 
Each  takes  a  side,  an'  then  they  squeeze 

the  ole  man  in  between  em, 
Turn  all  his  pockets  wrong  side  out  an' 

quick  ez  lightnin'  clean  'em  ; 
To  nary  one  on  'em  I 'd  trust  a  secon'- 

handed  rail 
No  furder  off  'an  I  could  sling  a  bullock 

by  the  tail. 

Webster  sot  matters  right  in  thet  air 

Mashfiel'  speech  o'  his'n  ; — 
"  Taylor,"  sez  he,  "  aint  nary  ways  the 

one  thet  I  'da  chizzen, 
Nor  he  aint  fittin'  fer  the  place,  an'  like 

ez  not  he  aint 
No  more  'n  a  tough  ole  bullethead,  an' 

no  gret  of  a  saint ; 
But  then,"  sez  he,  "  obsarve  my  pint, 

he 's  jest  ez  good  to  vote  fer 


Ez  though  the  greasin'  on  him  worn't  a 

thing  to  hire  Choate  fer  ; 
Aint  it  ez  easy  done  to  drop  a  ballot  in 

a  box 

Fer  one  ez  't  is  fer  t'  other,  fer  the  bull- 
dog ez  the  fox? " 

It  takes  a  mind  like  Dannel's,  fact,  ez  big 
ez  all  ou'  doors, 

To  find  out  thet  it  looks  like  rain  arter 
it  fairly  pours  ; 

I  'gree  with  him,  it  aint  so  drefne  trou- 
blesome to  vote 

Fer  Taylor  arter  all,  — it 's  jest  to  go  an' 
change  your  coat ; 

Wen  he 's  once  greased,  you  '11  swaller 
him  an'  never  know  on 't,  scurce, 

Unless  he  scratches,  goin'  down,  with 
them  'ere  Gin'ral's  spurs. 

I 've  ben  a  votin'  Demmercrat,  ez  reg- 
'lar  as  a  clock, 

But  don't  find  goin'  Taylor  gives  my 
narves  no  gret  'f  a  shock  ; 

Truth  is,  the  cutest  leadin'  Wigs,  ever 
sence  fust  they  found 

Wich  side  the  bread  gut  buttered  on,  hev 
kep'  a  edgin'  round ; 

They  kin'  o'  slipt  the  planks  frum  out  th' 
ole  platform  one  by  one 

An'  made  it  gradooally  noo,  'fore  folks 
know'd  wut  wuz  done, 

Till,  fur  'z  I  know,  there  aint  an  inch 
thet  I  could  lay  my  han'  on, 

But  I,  or  any  Demmercrat,  feels  comf't- 
ble  to  stan'  on, 

An'  ole  Wig  doctrines  act'lly  look,  their 
occ'pants  bein'  gone, 

Lonesome  ez  staddles  on  a  mash  with- 
out no  hayricks  on. 

I  spose  it 's  time  now  I  should  give  my 

thoughts  upon  the  plan, 
Thet  chipped  the  shell  at  Buffalo,  o'  set- 
tin'  up  ole  Van. 
I  used  to  vote  fer  Martin,  but,  I  swan, 

I 'm  clean  disgusted,  — 
He  aint  the  man  thet  I  can  say  is  fittin' 

to  be  trusted ; 
He  aint  half  antislav'ry  'nough,  nor  I 

aint  sure,  ez  some  be, 
He  'd  go  in  fer  abolishin'  the  Deestrick 

o'  Columby  ; 
An',  now  I  come  to  recollec,  it  kin'  o' 

makes  me  sick  'z 
A  horse,  to  think  o'  wut  he  wuz  in 

eighteen  thirty-six. 
An'  then,  another  thing ;  —  I  guess, 

though  mebby  I  am  wrong, 


202 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


This  BufT'lo  plaster  aint  agoin'  to  dror 

almighty  strong ; 
Some  folks,  I  know,  hev  gut  th'  idee 

thet  No'thun  dough '11  rise, 
Though,  'fore  I  see  it  riz  an'  baked,  I 

would  n't  trust  my  eyes ; 
'T  will  take  more  emptins,  a  long  chalk, 

than  this  noo  party  \s  gut, 
To  give  sech  heavy  cakes  ez  them  a 

start,  I  tell  ye  wut. 
But  even  ef  they  caird  the  day,  there 

would  n't  be  no  endurin' 
To  stan'  upon  a  platform  with  sech  crit- 
ters ez  Van  Buren  ;  — 
An'  his  son  John,  tu,  I  can't  think  how 

thet  'ere  chap  should  dare 
To  speak  ez  he  doos  ;  wy,  they  say  he 

used  to  cuss  an'  swear ! 
I  spose  he  never  read  the  hymn  thet 

tells  how  down  the  stairs 
A  feller  with  long  legs  wuz  throwed  thet 

would  n't  say  his  prayers. 
This  brings  me  to  another  pint :  the 

leaders  o'  the  party 
Aint  jest  sech  men  ez  I  can  act  along 

with  free  an'  hearty ; 
They  aint  not  quite  respectable,  an'  wen 

a  feller's  morrils 
Don't  toe  the  straightest  kin'  o'  mark, 

wy,  him  an'  me  jest  qnarrils. 
I  went  to  a  free  soil  meetin'  once,  an' 

wut  d'  ye  think  I  see  ? 
A  feller  was  aspoutin'  there  thet  act'lly 

come  to  me, 
About  two  year  ago  last  spring,  ez  nigh 

ez  I  can  jedge, 
An'  axed  me  ef  I  did  n't  want  to  sign 

the  Temprunce  pledge  ! 
He's  one  o'  them  that  goes  about  an'  sez 

you  hed  n't  ough'ter 
Drink  nothin',  mornin',  noon,  or  night, 

stronger  'an  Taunton  water. 
There 's  one  rule  1  've  ben  guided  by,  in 

settlin'  how  to  vote,  oilers, — 
I  take  the  side  thet  is  n't  took  by  them 

consarned  teetotallers. 

Ez  fer  the  niggers,  I 've  ben  South,  an' 

thet  hez  changed  my  min' ; 
A  lazier  ;  more  ongrateful  set  you  could 

n't  nowers  fin'. 
You  know  I  mentioned  in  my  last  thet 

I  should  buy  a  nigger, 
Ef  I  could  make  a  purchase  at  a  pooty 

mod' rate  figger ; 
So,  ez  there 's  nothin'  in  the  world  I 'm 

fonder  of  'an  gunnin', 


I  closed  a  bargain  finally  to  take  a  feller 
runnin'. 

I  shou'dered  queen' s-arm  an'  stumped 

out,  an'  wen  1  come  t'  th'  swamp, 
'T  worn't  very  long  afore  1  gut  upon  the 

nest  o'  Pomp ; 
I  come  acrost  a  kin'  o'  hut,  an',  playin' 

round  the  door, 
Some   little   woolly-headed    cubs,  ez 

many  'z  six  or  more. 
At  fust  I  thought  o'  firm',  but  think 

twice  is  safest  oilers; 
There  aint,  thinks  I,  not  one  on  'em 

but 's  wuth  his  twenty  dollars, 
Or  would  be,  ef  I  hed  'em  back  into  a 

Christian  land, — 
How  temptin'  all  on  'em  would  look 

upon  an  auction-stand  ! 
(Not  but  wut  /  hate  Slavery,  in  th' 

abstract,  stem  to  starn,  — 
I  leave  it  ware  our  fathers  did,  a  privit 

State  consarn.) 
Soon  'z  they  see  me,  they  yelled  an'  run, 

but  Pomp  wuz  out  ahoein' 
A  leetle  patch  o'  corn  he  hed,  or  else 

there  aint  no  knowin' 
He  would  n't  ha'  took  a  pop  at  me  ;  but 

I  hed  gut  the  start, 
An**  wen  he  looked,  I  vow  he  groaned 

ez  though  he 'd  broke  his  heart ; 
He  done  it  like  a  wite  man,  tu,  ez  nat'- 

ral  ez  a  pictur, 
The  imp'dunt,  pis'nous  hypocrite !  wus 

'an  a  boy  constrictur. 
"  You  can't  gum  me,  I  tell  ye  now,  an' 

so  you  need  n't  try, 
I  'xpect  my  eye-teeth  every  mail,  so  jest 

shet  up,"  sez  I. 
"Don't  go  to  actin'  ugly  now,  or  else 

I  '11  let  her  strip, 
You 'd  best  draw  kindly,  seem'  'z  how 

I 've  gut  ye  on  the  hip  ; 
Besides,  you  darned  ole  fool,  it  aint  no 

gret  of  a  disaster 
To  be  benev'lently  druv  back  to  a  con- 
tented master, 
Ware  you  hed  Christian  priv'ledges  you 

don't  seem  quite  aware  on, 
Or  you 'd  ha'  never  run  away  from  bein' 

well  took  care  on  ; 
Ez  fer  kin'  treatment,  wy,  he  wuz  so 

fond  on  ye,  he  said 
He 'd  give  a  fifty  spot  right  out,  to  git 

ye,  'live  or  dead  ; 
Wite  folks  aint  sot  by  half  ez  much  ; 

'member  I  run  away, 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


203 


Wen  I  wuz  bound  to  Cap'n  Jakes,  to 

Mattysqumscot  Bay ; 
Don'  know  him,  likely  ?    Spose  not ; 

wal,  the  mean  ole  codger  went 
An'  offered  —  wut  reward,  think  ?  Wal, 

it  worn't  no  less  'n  a  cent." 

Wal,  I  jest  gut  'em  into  line,  an'  druv 

'em  on  afore  me, 
The  pis'nous  brutes,  I 'd  no  idee  o'  the 

ill-will  they  bore  me  ; 
We  walked  till  som'ers  about  noon,  an' 

then  it  grew  so  hot 
I  thought  it  best  to  camp  awile,  so  I 

chose  out  a  spot 
Jest  under  a  magnoly  tree,  an'  there 

right  down  I  sot ; 
Then  I  unstrapped  my  wooden  leg,  coz 

it  begun  to  chafe, 
An'  laid  it  down  'long  side  o'  me,  sup- 

posin'  all  wuz  safe  ; 
I  made  my  darkies  all  set  down  around 

me  in  a  ring, 
An'  sot  an'  kin'  o'  ciphered  up  how 

much  the  lot  would  bring; 
But,  wile  I  drinked  the  peaceful  cup  of 

a  pure  heart  an'  min' 
(Mixed  with  some  wiskey,  now  an'  then), 

Pomp  he  snaked  up  behin', 
An'  creepin'  grad'lly  close  tu,  ez  quiet 

ez  a  mink, 
Jest  grabbed  my  leg,  and  then  pulled 

foot,  quicker  'an  you  could  wink, 
An',  come  to  look,  they  each  on  'em 

hed  gut  behin'  a  tree, 
An'  Pomp  poked  out  the  leg  a  piece, 

jest  so  ez  I  could  see, 
An'  yelled  to  me  to  throw  away  my  pis- 
tils an'  my  gun, 
Or  else  thet  they  'd  cair  off  the  leg,  an' 

fairly  cut  an'  run. 
I  vow  I  did  n't  b'lieve  there  wuz  a  de- 
cent alligatur 
Thet  hed  a  heart  so  destitoot  o'  common 

human  natur ; 
However,  ez  there  worn't  no  help,  I 

finally  give  in 
An'  heft  my  arms  away  to  git  my  leg 

safe  back  agin. 
Pomp  gethered  all  the  weapins  up,  an' 

then  he  come  an'  grinned, 
He  showed  his  ivory  some,  I  guess,  an' 

sez,  "  You  're  fairly  pinned  ; 
Jest  buckle  on  your  leg  agin,  an'  git 

right  up  an'  come, 
'T  wun't  du  fer  fammerly  men  like  me 

to  be  so  long  frum  hum." 


At  fust  I  put  my  foot  right  down  an' 

swore  1  would  n't  budge. 
"  Jest  ez  you  choose,"  sez  he,  quite  cool, 

"  either  be  shot  or  trudge." 
So  this  black-hearted  monster  took  an' 

act'lly  druv  me  back 
Along  the  very  feetmarks  o'  my  happy 

mornin'  track, 
An'  kep'  me  pris'ner  'bout  six  months, 

an'  worked  me,  tu,  like  sin, 
Till  I  hed  gut  his  corn  an'  his  Carliny 

taters  in ; 

He  made  me  larn  him  readin',  tu  (al- 
though the  crittur  saw 
How  much  it  hut  my  morril  sense  to  act 

agin  the  law), 
So'st  he  could  read  a  Bible  he 'd  gut ; 

an'  axed  ef  I  could  pint 
The  North  Star  out  ;  but  there  I  put 

his  nose  some  out  o'  jint, 
Fer  I  weeled  roun'  about  sou'west,  an', 

lookin'  up  a  bit, 
Picked  out  a  middlin'  shiny  one  an'  tole 

him  thet  wuz  it. 
Fin'lly,  he  took  me  to  the  door,  an', 

givin'  me  a  kick, 
Sez,  —  "  Ef  you  know  wut 's  best  fer  ye, 

be  off,  now,  double-quick  ; 
The  winter-time 's  a  comin'  on,  an', 

though  I  gut  ye  cheap, 
You're  so  darned  lazy,  I  don't  think 

you  're  hardly  wuth  your  keep  ; 
Besides,  the  childrin 's  growin'  up,  an' 

you  aint  jest  the  model 
I 'd  like  to  hev  'em  immertate,  an'  so 

you  'd  better  toddle  !  " 

Now  is  there  anythin'  on  airth  '11  ever 

prove  to  me 
Thet  renegader  slaves  like  him  air  fit 

fer  bein'  free  ? 
D'  you  think  they  '11  suck  me  in  to  jine 

the  Buff'lo  chaps,  an'  them 
Rank  infidels  thet  go  agin  ths  Scriptur'l 

cus  o'  Shem  ? 
Not  by  a  jugfull !  sooner  'n  thet,  I 'd 

go  thru  fire  an'  water ; 
Wen  I  hev  once  made  up  my  mind,  a 

meet'nhus  aint  sotter; 
No,  not  though  all  the  crows  thet  flies 

to  pick  my  bones  wuz  cawnn', — 
I  guess  we  're  in  a  Christian  land,  — 
Yourn, 

BIRDOFREDUM  SAWIN. 

[Here,  patient  reader,  we  take  leave  of  each 
other,  I  trust  with  some  mutual  satisfaction. 
I  say  patient,  for  I  love  not  that  kind  which 


204 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


skims  dippingly  over  the  surface  of  the  page, 
as  swallows  over  a  pool  before  rain.  By  such 
no  pearls  shall  be  gathered.  But  if  no  pearls 
there  be  (as,  indeed,  the  world  is  not  without 
example  of  books  wherefrom  the  longest-winded 
diver  shall  bring  up  no  more  than  his  proj>er 
handful  of  mud),  yet  let  us  hope  that  an  oyster 
or  two  may  reward  adequate  perseverance.  If 
neither  pearls  nor  oysters,  yet  is  patience  itself 
a  gem  worth  diving  deeply  for. 

It  may  seem  to  some  that  too  much  space 
lias  been  usurped  by  my  own  private  lucubra- 
tions, and  some  may  be  fain  to  bring  against 
ine  that  old  jest  of  him  who  preached  all  his 
hearers  out  of  the  meeting-house  save  only  the 
sexton,  who,  remaining  for  yet  a  little  space, 
from  a  sense  of  official  duty,  at  last  gave  out 
also,  and,  presenting  the  keys,  humbly  requested 
our  preacher  to  lock  the  doors,  when  he  should 
have  wholly  relieved  himself  of  his  testimony. 
I  confess  to  a  satisfaction  in  the  self  act  of 
preaching,  nor  do  I  esteem  a  discourse  to  be  I 
wholly  thrown  away  even  upon  a  sleeping  or 
unintelligent  auditory.  I  cannot  easily  believe 
that  the  Gospel  of  Saint  John,  which* Jacques 
Cartier  ordered  to  be  read  in  the  Latin  tongue 
to  the  Canadian  savages,  upon  his  first  meeting 
with  them,  fell  altogether  upon  stony  ground. 
For  the  earnestness  of  the  preacher  is  a  sermon 
appreciable  by  dullest  intellects  and  most  alien 
ears.  In  this  wise  did  Episcopius  convert 
many  to  his  opinions,  who  yet  understood  not 
the  language  in  which  he  discoursed.  The  ! 
chief  thing  is  that  the  messenger  believe  that 
he  has  an  authentic  message  to  deliver.  For 
counterfeit  messengers  that  mode  of  treatment 
which  Father  John  de  Piano  Carpini  relates  to 
have  prevailed  among  the  Tartars  would  seem 
effectual,  and,  perhaps,  deserved  enough.  For 
my  own  part,  I  may  lay  claim  to  so  much  of 
the  spirit  of  martyrdom  as  would  have  led  me 
to  go  into  banishment  with  those  clergymen 
whom  Alphonso  the  Sixth  of  Portugal  drave 
out  of  his  kingdom  for  refusing  to  shorten  their 
pulpit  eloquence.  It  is  possible,  that,  having 
been  invited  into  my  brother  Biglow's  desk,  I  J 
may  have  been  too  little  scrupulous  in  using  it 
for  the  venting  of  my  own  peculiar  doctrines  to 
a  congregation  drawn  together  in  the  expecta-  1 
tion  and  with  the  desire  of  hearing  him.  J 


I  am  not  wholly  unconscious  of  a  peculiarity 
of  mental  organization  which  impels  me,  like 
the  railroad-engine  with  its  train  of  cars,  to  run 
backward  for  a  short  distance  in  order  to  ob- 
tain a  fairer  start.  I  may  compare  myself  to 
one  fishing  from  the  rocks  when  the  sea  runs 
high,  who,  misinterpreting  the  suction  of  the 
undertow  for  the  biting  of  some  larger  fish, 
jerks  suddenly,  and  finds  that  he  has  caught  bot- 
tom, hauling  in  upon  the  end  of  his  line  a  trail 
of  various  alga;,  among  which,  nevertheless,  the 
naturalist  may  haply  find  somewhat  to  repay 
the  disappointment  of  the  angler.  Yet  have  I 
conscientiously  endeavored  to  adapt  myself  to 
the  impatient  temper  of  the  age,  daily  degener- 
ating more  and  more  from  the  high  standard  of 
our  pristine  New  England.  To  the  catalogue* 
of  lost  arts  I  would  mournfully  add  also  that 
of  listening  to  two-hour  sermons.  Surely  we 
have  been  abridged  into  a  race  of  pygmies. 
For,  truly,  in  those  of  the  old  discourses  yet 
subsisting  to  us  in  print,  the  endless  spinal 
column  of  divisions  and  subdivisions  can  be 
likened  to  nothing  so  exactly  as  to  the  verte- 
brae of  the  saurians,  whence  the  theorist  may 
conjecture  a  race  of  Anakim  proportionate  to 
the  withstanding  of  these  other  monsters.  I 
say  Anakim  rather  than  Nephelim,  because 
there  seem  reasons  for  supposing  that  the  race 
of  those  whose  heads  (though  no  giants)  are 
constantly  enveloped  in  clouds  (which  that 
name  imports)  will  never  become  extinct.  The 
attempt  to  vanquish  the  innumerable  heads 
of  one  of  those  afore-mentioned  discourses 
may  supply  us  with  a  plausible  interpretation 
of  the  second  labor  of  Hercules,  and  his  suc- 
cessful experiment  with  fire  affords  us  a  useful 
precedent. 

But  while  I  lament  the  degeneracy  of  the  age 
in  this  regard,  I  cannot  refuse  to  succumb  to 
its  influence.  Looking  out  through  my  study- 
window,  I  see  Mr.  Biglow  at  a  distance  busy 
in  gathering  his  Baldwins,  of  which,  to  judge 
by  the  number  of  barrels  lying  about  under  the 
trees,  his  crop  is  more  abundant  than  my  own, 
—  by  which  sight  I  am  admonished  to  turn  to 
those  orchards  of  the  mind  wherein  my  labors 
may  be  more  prospered,  and  apply  myself  dili- 
gently to  the  preparation  of  my  next  Sabbath's 
discourse.  — H.  W.] 


ME  LIB  (E  US-HIPPONAX. 


THE 


SECOND  SERIES. 

"Eariy  dp  6  18lo}tl(t/ji.6s  eviore  rod  KoafMov  irapairokv  €f.i<f>avi<TTiKWTepov. 

Longinus. 

"  J'aimerois  mieulx  que  mon  fils  apprinst  aux  tavernes  a  parler,  qu'aux  cscholes  de  la 
parlerie." 

Montaigne. 

„Unfer  @pradj  tft  aud)  em  ©prad)  imb  fan  fo  tootyl  em  6atf  netmen  als  bte  £atiner 

saccus." 

FlSCHART. 

u  Vim  rebus  aliquando  ipsa  verborum  humilitas  affert." 

QUINTILIANUS. 

"  O  ma  lengo, 
Plantarey  une  estelo  a  toun  froun  encrumit ! " 

Jasmin. 


/ 


TO 

E.  R.  HOAR. 


"  Multos  enim,  quibus  loquendi  ratio  non  desit,  invenias,  quos  curiose  potius  loqui  dixeris 
quam  Latine ;  quomodo  et  ilia  Attica  anus  Theophrastum,  hominem  alioqui  disertissimum, 
annotata  unius  afFectatione  verbi,  hospitem  dixit,  nec  alio  se  id  deprehendisse  interrogata  re- 
spondit,  quam  quod  niniium  Attice  loqueretur."  —  Quintilianus. 

"  Et  Anglice  sermonicari  solebat  populo,  sed  secundum  linguam  Norfolchie  ubi  natus  et  nu- 
tritus  erat."  —  Cronica  Jocelini. 

"La  politique  est  une  pierre  attachee  au  cou  de  la  litterature,  et  qui  en  moins  de  six  mois  la 

submerge  Cette  politique  va  offenser  mortellement  une  moitie  des  lecteurs,  et  ennuyer 

l'autre  qui  l'a  trouvee  bien  autrement  speciale  et  energique  dans  le  journal  du  matin."  —  Henri 
Beyle. 


INTRODUCTION. 


Though  prefaces  seem  of  late  to  have 
fallen  under  some  reproach,  they  have  at 
least  this  advantage,  that  they  set  us 
again  on  the  feet  of  our  personal  conscious- 
ness and  rescue  us  from  the  gregarious 
mock-modesty  or  cowardice  of  that  we 
which  shrills  feebly  throughout  modern 
literature  like  the  shrieking  of  mice  in  the 
walls  of  a  house  that  has  passed  its  prime. 
Having  a  few  words  to  say  to  the  many 
friends  whom  the  "  Biglow  Papers  "  have 
won  me,  I  shall  accordingly  take  the  free- 
dom of  the  first  person  singular  of  the 
personal  pronoun.  Let  each  of  the  good- 
natured  unknown  who  have  cheered  me  by 
the  written  communication  of  their  sym- 
pathy look  upon  this  Introduction  as  a 
private  letter  to  himself. 

When,  more  than  twenty  years  ago,  I 
wrote  the  first  of  the  series,  I  had  no  defi- 
nite plan  and  no  intention  of  ever  writing 
another.  Thinking  the  Mexican  war,  as  I 
think  it  still,  a  national  crime  committed 
in  behoof  of  Slavery,  our  common  sin,  and 
wishing  to  put  the  feeling  of  those  who 
thought  as  I  did  in  a  way  that  would  tell, 
I  imagined  to  myself  such  an  upcountry 
man  as  I  had  often  seen  at  antislavery 
gatherings,  capable  of  district-school  Eng- 
lish, but  always  instinctively  falling  back 
into  the  natural  stronghold  of  his  homely 
dialect  when  heated  to  the  point  of  self- 
forgetfulness.  When  I  began  to  carry  out 
my  conception  and  to  write  in  my  as- 
sumed character,  I  found  myself  in  a  strait 
between  two  perils.  On  the  one  hand,  I 
was  in  danger  of  being  carried  beyond  the 
limit  of  my  own  opinions,  or  at  least  of 
that  temper  with  which  every  man  should 
speak  his  mind  in  print,  and  on  the  other 
I  feared  the  risk  of  seeming  to  vulgarize  a 
deep  and  sacred  conviction.  I  needed  on 
occasion  to  rise  above  the  level  of  mere 
patois,  and  for  this  purpose  conceived  the 
Rev.  Mr.  Wilbur,  who  should  express  the 
more  cautious  element  of  the  New  England 
character  and  its  pedantry,  as  Mr.  Biglow 
should  serve  for  its  homely  common-sense 
vivified  and  heated  by  conscience.  The 
parson  was  to  be  the  complement  rather 
than  the  antithesis  of  his  parishioner,  and 


I  felt  or  fancied  a  certain  humorous  ele- 
ment in  the  real  identity  of  the  two  under 
a  seeming  incongruity.  Mr.  Wilbur's  fond- 
ness for  scraps  of  Latin,  though  drawn 
from  the  life,  I  adopted  deliberately  to 
heighten  the  contrast.  Finding  soon  after 
that  I  needed  some  one  as  a  mouthpiece  of 
the  mere  drollery,  for  I  conceive  that  true 
humor  is  never  divorced  from  moral  con- 
viction, I  invented  Mr.  Sawin  for  the 
clown  of  my  little  puppet-show.  I  meant 
to  embody  in  him  that  half-conscious  un- 
morality  which  I  had  noticed  as  the  recoil 
in  gross  natures  from  a  puritanism  that 
still  strove  to  keep  in  its  creed  the  intense 
savor  which  had  long  gone  out  of  its  faith 
and  life.  In  the  three  I  thought  I  should 
find  room  enough  to  express,  as  it  was  my 
plan  to  do,  the  popular  feeling  and  opin- 
ion of  the  time.  For  the  names  of  two  of 
my  characters,  since  I  have  received  some 
remonstrances  from  very  worthy  persons 
who  happen  to  bear  them,  I  would  say 
that  they  were  purely  fortuitous,  proba- 
bly mere  unconscious  memories  of  sign- 
boards or  directories.  Mr.  Sawin's  sprang 
from  the  accident  of  a  rhyme  at  the  end 
of  his  first  epistle,  and  I  purposely  chris- 
tened him  by  the  impossible  surname  of 
Birdofredum  not  more  to  stigmatize  him 
as  the  incarnation  of  "  Manifest  Destiny," 
in  other  words,  of  national  recklessness  as 
to  right  and  wrong,  than  to  avoid  the 
chance  of  wounding  any  private  sensitive- 
ness. 

The  success  of  my  experiment  soon  began 
not  only  to  astonish  me,  but  to  make  me 
feel  the  responsibility  of  knowing  that  I 
held  in  my  hand  a  weapon  instead  of  the 
mere  fencing-stick  I  had  supposed.  Very 
far  from  being  a  popular  author  under  my 
own  name,  so  far,  indeed,  as  to  be  almost 
unread,  I  found  the  verses  of  my  pseu- 
donyme  copied  everywhere  ;  I  saw  them 
pinned  up  in  workshops  ;  I  heard  them 
quoted  and  their  authorship  debated  ;  I 
once  even,  when  rumor  had  at  length 
caught  up  my  name  in  one  of  its  eddies, 
had  the  satisfaction  of  overhearing  it  dem- 
onstrated, in  the  pauses  of  a  concert,  that 
/  was  utterly  incompetent  to  have  writ- 


210 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


ten  anything  of  the  kind.  I  had  read  too 
much  not  to  know  the  utter  worthlessness 
of  contemporary  reputation,  especially  as 
regards  satire,  but  I  knew  also  that  by 
giving  a  certain  amount  of  influence  it  also 
had  its  worth,  if  that  influence  were  used  on 
the  right  side.  I  had  learned,  too,  that  the 
first  requisite  of  good  writing  is  to  have  an 
earnest  and  definite  purpose,  whether  aes- 
thetic or  moral,  and  that  even  good  writing, 
to  please  long,  must  have  more  than* an 
average  amount  either  of  imagination  or 
common-sense.  The  first  of  these  falls  to 
the  lot  of  scarcely  one  in  several  genera- 
tions ;  the  last  is  within  the  reach  of  many 
in  every  one  that  passes  ;  and  of  this  an 
author  may  fairly  hope  to  become  in  part 
the  mouthpiece.  If  I  put  on  the  cap  and 
bells  and  made  myself  one  of  the  court- 
fools  of  King  Demos,  it  was  less  to  make 
his  majesty  laugh  than  to  win  a  passage 
to  his  royal  ears  for  certain  serious  things 
which  I  had  deeply  at  heart.  I  say  this 
because  there  is  no  imputation  that  could 
be  more  galling  to  any  man's  self-respect 
than  that  of  being  a  mere  jester.  I  en- 
deavored, by  generalizing  my  satire,  to 
give  it  what  value  I  could  beyond  the  pass- 
ing moment  and  the  immediate  applica- 
tion. How  far  I  have  succeeded  I  cannot 
tell,  but  I  have  had  better  luck  than  I 
ever  looked  for  in  seeing  my  verses  survive 
to  pass  beyond  their  nonage. 

In  choosing  the  Yankee  dialect,  I  did 
not  act  without  forethought.  It  had  long 
seemed  to  me  that  the  great  vice  of  Amer- 
ican writing  and  speaking  was  a  studied 
want  of  simplicity,  that  we  were  in  danger 
of  coming  to  look  on  our  mother-tongue 
as  a  dead  language,  to  be  sought  in  the 
grammar  and  dictionary  rather  than  in  the 
heart,  and  that  our  only  chance  of  escape 
was  by  seeking  it  at  its  living  sources 
among  those  who  were,  as  Scottowe  says 
of  Major-General  Gibbons,  "divinely  illit- 
erate." President  Lincoln,  the  only  really 
great  public  man  whom  these  latter  days 
have  seen,  was  great  also  in  this,  that  he 
was  master  —  witness  his  speech  at  Get- 
tysburg—  of  a  truly  masculine  English, 
classic  because  it  was  of  no  special  period, 
and  level  at  once  to  the  highest  and  lowest 
of  his  countrymen.  But  whoever  should 
read  the  debates  in  Congress  might  fancy 
himself  present  at  a  meeting  of  the  city 
council  of  some  city  of  Southern  Gaul  in 
the  decline  of  the  Empire,  where  barba- 
rians with  a  Latin  varnish  emulated  each 
other  in  being  more  than  Ciceronian. 
Whether  it  be  want  of  culture,  for  the 
highest  outcome  of  that  is  simplicity,  or 
for  whatever  reason,  it  is  certain  that  very 
lew  American  writers  or  speakers  wield 


their  native  language  with  the  directness, 
precision,  and  force  that  are  common  as 
the  day  in  the  mother  country.  We  use 
it  like  Scotsmen,  not  as  if  it  belonged  to 
us,  but  as  if  we  wished  to  prove  that  we 
belonged  to  it,  by  showing  our  intimacy 
with  its  written  rather  than  with  its 
spoken  dialect.  And  yet  all  the  while  our 
popular  idiom  is  racy  with  life  and  vigor 
and  originality,  bucksome  (as  Milton  used 
the  word)  to  our  new  occasions,  and  proves 
itself  no  mere  graft  by  sending  up  new 
suckers  from  the  old  root  in  spite  of  us. 
It  is  only  from  its  roots  in  the  living  gen- 
erations of  men  that  a  language  can  be 
reinforced  with  fresh  vigor  for  its  needs  ; 
what  may  be  called  a  literate  dialect  grows 
ever  more  and  more  pedantic  and  foreign, 
till  it  becomes  at  last  as  unfitting  a  vehicle 
for  living  thought  as  monkish  Latin.  That 
we  should  all  be  made  to  talk  like  books 
is  the  danger  with  which  we  are  threatened 
by  the  Universal  Schoolmaster,  who  does 
his  best  to  enslave  the  minds  and  memo- 
ries of  his  victims  to  what  he  esteems  the 
best  models  of  English  composition,  that 
is  to  say,  to  the  writers  whose  style  is 
faultily  correct  and  has  no  blood-warmth 
in  it.  No  language  after  it  has  faded  into 
diction,  none  that  cannot  suck  up  the 
feeding  juices  secreted  for  it  in  the  rich 
mother-earth  of  common  folk,  can  bring 
forth  a  sound  and  lusty  book.  True  vigor 
and  heartiness  of  phrase  do  not  pass  from 
page  to  page,  but  from  man  to  man,  where 
the  brain  is  kindled  and  the  lips  suppled 
by  downright  living  interests  and  by  pas- 
sion in  its  very  throe.  Language  is  the 
soil  of  thought,  and  our  own  especially  is 
a  rich  leaf-mould,  the  slow  deposit  of  ages, 
the  shed  foliage  of  feeling,  fancy,  and  im- 
agination, which  has  suffered  an  earth- 
change,  that  the  vocal  forest,  as  Howell 
called  it,  may  clothe  itself  anew  with 
living  green.  There  is  death  in  the  dic- 
tionary; and,  where  language  is  too  strictly 
limited  by  convention,  the  ground  for  ex- 
pression to  grow  in  is  limited  also;  and 
we  get  a  potted  literature,  Chinese  dwarfs 
instead  of  healthy  trees. 

But  while  the  schoolmaster  has  been 
busy  starching  our  language  and  smooth- 
ing it  flat  with  the  mangle  of  a  supposed 
classical  authority,  the  newspaper  reporter 
has  been  doing  even  more  harm  by  stretch- 
ing and  swelling  it  to  suit  his  occasions. 
A  dozen  years  ago  I  began  a  list,  which  I 
have  added  to  from  time  to  time,  of  some 
of  the  changes  which  may  be  fairly  laid  at 
his  door.  I  give  a  few  of  them  as  show- 
ing their  tendency,  all  the  more  dangerous 
that  their  effect,  like  that  of  some  poisons, 
is  insensibly  cumulative,  and  that  they  are 


INTRODUCTION. 


211 


sure  at  last  of  effect  among  a  people  whose 
chief  reading  is  the  daily  paper.    I  give  in 

Old  Style. 

Was  hanged. 

When  the  halter  was  put  round  his  neck. 


A  great  crowd  came  to  see. 
Great  fire. 
The  fire  spread. 

House  burned. 

The  fire  was  got  under. 

Man  fell. 

A  horse  and  wagon  ran  against. 

The  frightened  horse. 
Sent  for  the'doctor. 

The  mayor  of  the  city  in  a  short  speech  wel- 
comed. 


I  shall  say  a  few  words. 

Began  his  answer. 
A  bystander  advised. 


He  died. 


In  one  sense  this  is  nothing  new.  The 
school  of  Pope  in  verse  ended  by  wire- 
drawing its  phrase  to  such  thinness  that 
it  could  bear  no  weight  of  meaning  what- 
ever. Nor  is  line  writing  by  any  means 
confined  to  America.  All  writers  without 
imagination  fall  into  it  of  necessity  when- 
ever they  attempt  the  figurative.  I  take 
two  examples  from  Mr.  Merivale's  "  His- 
tory of  the  Romans  under  the  Empire," 
which,  indeed,  is  full  of  such.  "  The  last 
years  of  the  age  familiarly  styled  the  Au- 
gustan were  singularly  barren  of  the  liter- 
ary glories  from  which  its  celebrity  was 
chiefly  derived.  One  by  one  the  stars  in 
its  firmament  had  been  lost  to  the  world  ; 
Virgil  and  Horace,  etc.,  had  long  since 
died;  the  charm  which  the  imagination  of 
Livy  had  thrown  over  the  earlier  annals  of 
Rome  had  ceased  to  shine  on  the  details 
of  almost  contemporary  history ;  and  if 
the  flood  of  his  eloquence  still  continued 
flowing,  we  can  hardly  suppose  that  the 
stream  was  as  rapid,  as  fresh,  and  as  clear 
as  ever."  I  will  not  waste  time  in  criti- 
cising the  bad  English  or  the  mixture  of 
metaphor  in  these  sentences,  but  will 
simply  cite  another  from  the  same  author 


I  two  columns  the  old  style  and  its  modern 
|  equivalent. 

New  Style. 

Was  launched  into  eternity. 

When  the  fatal  noose  was  adjusted  about  the 

neck  of  the  unfortunate  victim  of  his  own 

unbridled  passions. 
A  vast  concourse  was  assembled  to  witness. 
Disastrous  conflagration. 

The  conflagration  extended  its  devastating 

career. 
Edifice  consumed. 

The  progress  of  the  devouring  element  was 

arrested. 
Individual  was  precipitated. 
A  valuable  horse  attached  to  a  vehicle  driven 

by  J.  S. ,  in  the  employment  of  J.  B.,  collided 

with. 

The  infuriated  animal. 

Called  into  requisition  the  services  of  the 
family  physician. 

The  chief  magistrate  of  the  metropolis,  in  well- 
chosen  and  eloquent  language,  frequently 
interrupted  by  the  plaudits  of  the  surging 
multitude,  officially  tendered  the  hospitali- 
ties. 

I  shall,  with  your  permission,  beg  leave  to 
offer  some  brief  observations. 

Commenced  his  rejoinder. 

One  of  those  omnipresent  characters  who,  as 
if  in  pursuance  of  some  previous  arrange- 
ment, are  certain  to  be  encountered  in  the 
vicinity  when  an  accident  occurs,  ventured 
the  suggestion. 

He  deceased,  he  passed  out  of  existence,  his 
spirit  quitted  its  earthly  habitation,  winged 
its  way  to  eternity,  shook  off  its  burden,  etc. 

which  is  even  worse.  "The  shadowy 
phantom  of  the  Republic  continued  to  flit 
before  the  eyes  of  the  Caesar.  There  was 
still,  he  apprehended,  a  germ  of  senti- 
ment existing,  on  which  a  scion  of  his  own 
house,  or  even  a  stranger,  might  boldly 
throw  himself  and  raise  the  standard  of 
patrician  independence."  Now  a  ghost 
may  haunt  a  murderer,  but  hardly,  I 
should  think,  to  scare  him  with  the  threat 
of  taking  a  new  lease  of  its  old  tenement. 
And  fancy  the  scion  of  a  house  in  the  act 
of  throwing  itself  upon  a  germ  of  sentiment 
to  raise  a  standard  !  I  am  glad,  since  we 
have  so  much  in  the  same  kind  to  answer 
for,  that  this  bit  of  horticultural  rhetoric 
is  from  beyond  sea.  I  would  not  be  sup- 
posed to  condemn  truly  imaginative  prose. 
There  is  a  simplicity  of  splendor,  no  less 
than  of  plainness,  and  prose  would  be  poor 
indeed  if  it  could  not  find  a  tongue  for 
that  meaning  of  the  mind  which  is  behind 
the  meaning  of  the  words.  It  has  some- 
times seemed  to  me  that  in  England  there 
was  a  growing  tendency  to  curtail  language 
into  a  mere  convenience,  and  to  defecate  it 
of  all  emotion  as  thoroughly  as  algebraic 
signs.    This  has  arisen,  no  doubt,  in  part 


212 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


from  that  healthy  national  contempt  of 
humbug  which  is  characteristic  of  English- 
men, in  part  from  that  sensitiveness  to  the 
ludicrous  which  makes  them  so  shy  of  ex- 
pressing feeling,  but  in  part  also,  it  is  to 
be  feared,  from  a  growing  distrust,  one 
might  almost  say  hatred,  of  whatever  is 
super-material.  There  is  something  sad 
in  the  scorn  with  which  their  journalists 
treat  the  notion  of  there  being  such  a  thing 
as  a  national  ideal,  seeming  utterly  to 
have  forgotten  that  even  in  the  affairs  of 
this  world  the  imagination  is  as  much 
matter-of-fact  as  the  understanding.  If 
we  were  to  trust  the  impression  made  on 
us  by  some  of  the  cleverest  and  most 
characteristic  of  their  periodical  litera- 
ture, we  should  think  England  hopelessly 
stranded  on  the  good-humored  cynicism  of 
well-to-do  middle-age,  and  should  fancy  it 
an  enchanted  nation,  doomed  to  sit  forever 
with  its  feet  under  the  mahogany  in  that 
after-dinner  mood  which  follows  consci- 
entious repletion,  and  which  it  is  ill- 
manners  to  disturb  with  any  topics  more 
exciting  than  the  quality  of  the  wines. 
But  there  are  already  symptoms  that  a 
large  class  of  Englishmen  are  getting 
weary  of  the  dominion  of  consols  and 
divine  common -sense,  and  to  believe  that 
eternal  three  per  cent  is  not  the  chief  end 
of  man,  nor  the  highest  and  only  kind  of 
interest  to  which  the  powers  and  oppor- 
tunities of  England  are  entitled. 

The  quality  of  exaggeration  has  often 
been  remarked  on  as  typical  of  American 
character,  and  especially  of  American  hu- 
mor. In  Dr.  Petri's  Gedrdngtes  Handbuch 
der  Fremdworter,  we  are  told  that  the 
word  humbug  is  commonly  used  for  the 
exaggerations  of  the  North-Americans.  To 
be  sure,  one  would  be  tempted  to  think 
the  dream  of  Columbus  half  fulfilled,  and 
that  Europe  had  found  in  the  West  a 
nearer  way  to  Orientalism,  at  least  in  dic- 
tion. But  it  seems  to  me  that  a  great  deal 
of  what  is  set  down* as  mere  extravagance 
is  more  fitly  to  be  called  intensity  and  pic- 
turesqueness,  symptoms  of  the  imagina- 
tive faculty  in  full  health  and  strength, 
though  producing,  as  yet,  only  the  raw  and 
formless  material  in  which  poetry  is  to 
work.  By  and  by,  perhaps,  the  world 
will  see  it  fashioned  into  poem  and  picture, 
and  Europe,  which  will  be  hard  pushed 
for  originality  erelong,  may  have  to  thank 
us  for  a  new  sensation.  The  French  con- 
tinue to  find  Shakespeare  exaggerated 
because  he  treated  English  just  as  our 
country-folk  do  when  they  speak  of  a 
"steep  price,"  or  say  that  they  "freeze, 
to"  a  thing.  The  first  postulate  of  an  origi- 
nal literature  is  that  a  people  should  use 


their  language  instinctively  and  uncon- 
sciously, as  if  it  were  a  lively  part  of  their 
growth  and  personality,  not  as  the  mere 
torpid  boon  of  education  or  inheritance. 
Even  Burns  contrived  to  write  very  poor 
verse  and  prose  in  English.  Vulgarisms 
are  often  only  poetry  in  the  egg.  The  late 
Mr.  Horace  Mann,  in  one  of  his  public 
addresses,  commented  at  some  length  on 
the  beauty  and  moral  significance  of  the 
French  phrase  s'orienter,  and  called  on 
his  young  friends  to  practise  upon  it  in 
life.  There  was  not  a  Yankee  in  his 
audience  whose  problem  had  not  always 
been  to  find  out  what  was  about  east,  and 
to  shape  his  course  accordingly.  This 
charm  which  a  familiar  expression  gains 
by  being  commented,  as  it  were,  and  set 
in  a  new  light  by  a  foreign  language,  is 
curious  and  instructive.  I  cannot  help 
thinking  that  Mr.  Matthew  Arnold  forgets 
this  a  little  too  much  sometimes  when  he 
wrrites  of  the  beauties  of  French  style.  It 
would  not  be  hard  to  find  in  the  works  of 
French  Academicians  phrases  as  coarse  as 
those  he  cites  from  Burke,  only  they  are 
veiled  by  the  unfamiliarity  of  the  language. 
But,  however  this  may  be,  it  is  certain 
that  poets  and  peasants  please  us  in  the 
same  way  by  translating  words  back  again 
to  their  primal  freshness,  and  infusing 
them  with  a  delightful  strangeness  which 
is  anything  but  alienation.  What,  for  ex- 
ample, is  Milton's  " edge  of  battle"  but  a 
doing  into  English  of  the  Latin  aciesl 
Was  die  Gans  gedacht  das  der  Schwan 
vollbracht,  what  the  goose  but  thought, 
that  the  swan  full  brought  (or,  to  de-Sax- 
onize  it  a  little,  what  the  goose  conceived, 
that  the  swan  achieved),  and  it  may  well 
be  that  the  life,  invention,  and  vigor  shown 
by  our  popular  speech,  and  the  freedom 
with  which  it  is  shaped  to  the  instant 
want  of  those  wrho  use  it,  are  of  the  best 
omen  for  our  having  a  swan  at  last.  The 
part  I  have  taken  on  myself  is  that  of  the 
humbler  bird. 

But  it  is  affirmed  that  there  is  some- 
thing innately  vulgar  in  the  Yankee  dia- 
lect. M.  Sainte-Beuve  says,  with  his 
usual  neatness  :  "  Je  definis  un  patois  une 
ancienne  langue  qui  a  ev,  des  malheurs, 
ou  encore  une  langue  toute  jeune  et  qui  n'a 
pas  fait  fortune."  The  first  part  of  his 
definition  applies  to  a  dialect  like  the  Pro- 
vencal, the  last  to  the  Tuscan  before  Dante 
had  lifted  it  into  a  classic,  and  neither,  it 
seems  to  me,  will  quite  fit  a  patois,  which 
is  not  properly  a  dialect,  but  rather  certain 
archaisms,  proverbial  phrases,  and  modes 
of  pronunciation,  which  maintain  them- 
selves among  the  uneducated  side  by  side 
with  the  finished  and  universally  accepted 


INTRODUCTION. 


213 


language.  Norman  French,  for  example, 
or  Scotch  down  to  the  time  of  James  VI., 
could  hardly  be  catted  patois,  while  I  should 
be  half  inclined  to  name  the  Yankee  a  lingo 
rather  than  a  dialect.  It  has  retained  a 
lew  words  now  fallen  into  disuse  in  the 
mother  country,  like  to  tarry,  to  progress, 
fleshy,  fall,  and  some  others ;  it  has  changed 
the  meaning  of  some,  as  in  freshet ;  and 
it  has  clung  to  what  I  suspect  to  have  been 
the  broad  Norman  pronunciation  of  e 
(which  Moliere  puts  into  the  mouth  of  his 
rustics)  in  such  words  as  sarvant,  parfect, 
vartoo,  and  the  like.  It  maintains  some- 
thing of  the  French  sound  of  a  also  in 
words  like  chamber,  d&nger  (though  the 
latter  had  certainly  begun  to  take  its  pres- 
ent sound  so  early  as  1636,  when  I  find  it 
sometimes  spelt  dainger).  But  in  general 
it  may  be  said  that  nothing  can  be  found 
in  it  which" does  not  still  survive  in  some 
one  or  other  of  the  English  provincial  dia- 
lects. I  am  not  speaking  now  of  Ameri- 
canisms properly  so  called,  that  is,  of 
words  or  phrases  which  have  grown  into 
use  here  either  through  necessity,  inven- 
tion, or  accident,  such  as  a  carry,  a  one- 
horse  affair,  a  prairie,  to  vamose.  Even 
these  are  fewer  than  is  sometimes  taken 
for  granted.  But  I  think  some  fair  defence 
may  be  made  against  the  charge  of  vulgar- 
ity. Properly  speaking,  vulgarity  is  in 
the  thought,  and  not  in  the  word  or  the 
way  of  pronouncing  it.  Modern  French, 
the  most  polite  of  languages,  is  barbarously 
vulgar  if  compared  with  the  Latin  out  of 
which  it  has  been  corrupted,  or  even  with 
Italian.  There  is  a  wider  gap,  and  one 
implying  greater  boorishness,  between 
minis terium  and  metier,  or  sapiens  and 
sachant,  than  between  druv  and  drove  or 
agin  and  against,  which  last  is  plainly  an 
arrant  superlative.  Our  rustic  coverlid 
is  nearer  its  French  original  than  the  di- 
minutive coverlet,  into  which  it  has  been 
ignorantly  corrupted  in  politer  speech. 
1  obtained  from  three  cultivated  English- 
men at  different  times  three  diverse  pro- 
nunciations of  a  single  word,  —  coiocum- 
ber,  coocumber,  and  cucumber.  Of  these 
the  first,  which  is  Yankee  also,  comes 
nearest  to  the  nasality  of  concombre.  Lord 
Ossory  assures  us  that  Voltaire  saw  the 
best  society  in  England,  and  Voltaire  tells 
his  countrymen  that  handkerchipf  was 
pronounced  hankercher.  I  find  it  so  spelt 
in  Hakluyt  and  elsewhere.  This  enormity 
the  Yankee  still  persists  in,  and  as  there 
is  always  a  reason  for  such  deviations  from 
the  sound  as  represented  by  the  spelling, 
may  we  not  suspect  two  sources  of  deriva- 
tion, and  find  an  ancestor  for  kercher  in 
couverture   rather  than   in  couvrechefl 


And  what  greater  phonetic  vagary  (which 
Dryden,  by  the  way,  called  fegary)  in  our 
lingua  rustica  than  this  ker  for  couvre  I 
I  copy  from  the  fly-leaves  of  my  books 
where  I  have  noted  them  from  time  to 
time  a  few  examples  of  pronunciation  and 
phrase  which  will  show  that  the  Yankee 
often  has  antiquity  and  very  respectable 
literary  authority  on  his  side.  My  list 
might  be  largely  increased  by  referring  to 
glossaries,  but  to  them  every  one  can  go 
for  himself,  and  I  have  gathered  enough 
for  my  purpose. 

I  will  take  first  those  cases  in  which 
something  like  the  French  sound  has  been 
preserved  in  certain  single  letters  and 
diphthongs.  And  this  opens  a  curious 
question  as  to  how  long  this  Gallicism 
maintained  itself  in  England.  Sometimes 
a  divergence  in  pronunciation  has  given 
us  two  words  with  different  meanings,  as 
in  genteel  and  jaunty,  which  I  find  coming 
in  toward  the  close  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury, and  wavering  between  genteel  and 
jantee.  It  is  usual  in  America  to  drop 
the  u  in  words  ending  in  our,  —  a  very 
proper  change  recommended  by  Howell 
two  centuries  ago,  and  carried  out  by  him 
so  far  as  his  printers  would  allow.  This 
and  the  corresponding  changes  in  musique, 
musick,  and  the  like,  which  he  also  advo- 
cated, show  that  in  his  time  the  French 
accent  indicated  by  the  superfluous  letters 
(for  French  had  once  nearly  as  strong  an 
accent  as  Italian)  had  gone  out  of  use. 
There  is  plenty  of  French  accent  down  to 
the  end  of  Elizabeth's  reign.  In  Daniel  we 
have  riches  and  counsel',  in  Bishop  Hall 
comet' ,  chapelain,  in  Donne  pictures',  vir- 
tue,  presence1,  mortal' ,  merit' ,  hamous', 
giant',  with  many  more,  and  Marston's 
satires  are  full  of  them.  The  two  latter, 
however,  are  not  to  be  relied  on,  as  they 
may  be  suspected  of  Chaucerizing.  Her- 
rick  writes  baptime.  The  tendency  to 
throw  the  accent  backward  began  early. 
But  the  incongruities  are  perplexing,  and 
perhaps  mark  the  period  of  transition.  In 
Warner's  "  Albion's  England "  we  have 
creator'  and  creature'  side  by  side  with  the 
modern  creator  and  creature.  Jfi'nvy  and 
e'nvying  occur  in  Campion  (1602),  and  yet 
envy'  survived  Milton.  In  some  cases  we 
have  gone  back  again  nearer  to  the  French, 
as  in  revenue  for  revenue.  I  had  been  so 
used  to  hearing  imbecile  pronounced  with 
the  accent  on  the  first  syllable,  which  is  in 
accordance  with  the  general  tendency  in 
such  matters,  that  I  was  surprised  to  find 
imbec'ile  in  a  verse  of  Wordsworth.  The 
dictionaries  all  give  it  so.  I  asked  a  highly 
cultivated  Englishman,  and  he  declared 
for  imbeceel'.    In  general  it  may  be  as- 


214 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


sumed  that  accent  will  finally  settle  on  the 
syllable  dictated  by  greater  ease  and  there- 
fore quickness  of  utterance.  Blasphemous } 
for  example,  is  more  rapidly  pronounced 
than  blasphem' ous,  to  which  our  Yankee 
clings,  following  in  this  the  usage  of  many 
of  the  older  poets.  Amer'ican  is  easier 
than  American,  and  therefore  the  false 
quantity  has  carried  the  day,  though  the 
true  one  may  be  found  in  George  Herbert, 
and  even  so  late  as  Cowley. 

To  come  back  to  the  matter  in  hand. 
Our  "uplandish  man"  retains  the  soft  or 
thin  sound  of  the  u  in  some  words,  such 
as  rule,  truth  (sometimes  also  pronounced 
truth,  not  trooth),  while  he  says  noo  for 
neio,  and  gives  to  vieiv  and  few  so  inde- 
scribable a  mixture  of  the  two  sounds  with 
a  slight  nasal  tincture  that  it  may  be  called 
the  Yankee  shibboleth.  Spenser  writes 
deow  (dew)  which  can  only  be  pronounced 
with  the  Yankee  nasality.  In  rule  the 
least  sound  of  a  precedes  the  u.  I  find 
reule  in  Pecock's  "  Repressor."  He  prob- 
ably pronounced  it  rayoole,  as  the  old 
French  word  from  which  it  is  derived  was 
very  likely  to  be  sounded  at  first,  with  a 
reminiscence  of  its  original  regula.  Tin- 
dal  has  rueler,  and  the  Coventry  Plays 
have  preudent.  As  for  noo,  may  it  not 
claim  some  sanction  in  its  derivation, 
whether  from  nouveau  or  neuf  the  an- 
cient sound  of  which  may  very  well  have 
been  noof,  as  nearer  novus  $  Beef  would 
seem  more  like  to  have  come  from  buffe 
than  from  bosuf  unless  the  two  were  mere 
varieties  of  spelling.  The  Saxon  few  may 
have  caught  enough  from  its  French  cousin 
peu  to  claim  the  benefit  of  the  same  doubt 
as  to  sound ;  and  our  slang  phrase  a  few 
(as  "I  licked  him  a  few")  may  well  ap- 
peal to  un  peu  for  sense  and  authority. 
Nay,  might  not  lick  itself  turn  out  to  be 
the  good  old  word  lain  in  an  English  dis- 
guise, if  the  latter  should  claim  descent  as, 
perhaps,  he  fairly  might,  from  the  Latin 
lambere  ?  The  New  England  ferce  for 
fierce,  and  perce  for  pierce  (sometimes 
heard  as  fairce  and  pairce),  are  also  Nor- 
man. For  its  antiquity  I  cite  the  rhyme 
of  verse  and  pierce  in  Chapman  and  Donne, 
and  in  some  commendatory  verses  by  a 
Mr.  Berkenhead  before  the  poems  of  Fran- 
cis Beaumont.  Our  pairlous  for  perilous 
is  of  the  same  kind,  and  is  nearer  Shake- 
speare's parlous  than  the  modern  pronun- 
ciation. One  other  Gallicism  survives  in 
our  pronunciation.  Perhaps  I  should  rather 
call  it  a  semi-Gallicism,  for  it  is  the  result 
of  a  futile  effort  to  reproduce  a  French 
sound  with  English  lips.  Thus  for  joint, 
employ,  royal,  we  have  jynt,  empty,  ryle, 
the  last  differing  only  from  rile  (roil)  in  a 


prolongation  of  the  y  sound.  In  Walter 
de  Biblesworth  I  find  solives  Englished  by 
gistes.  This,  it  is  true,  may  have  been 
pronounced  jeests,  but  the  pronunciation 
jystes  must  have  preceded  the  present 
spelling,  which  was  no  doubt  adopted  after 
the  radical  meaning  was  forgotten,  as  ana- 
logical with  other  words  in  oi.  In  the 
same  way  after  Norman-French  influence 
had  softened  the  I  out  of  would  (we  already 
find  woud  for  veut  in  N.  F.  poems),  should 
followed  the  example,  and  then  an  I  was 
put  into  could,  where  it  does  not  belong, 
to  satisfy  the  logic  of  the  eye,  which  has 
affected  the  pronunciation  and  even  the 
spelling  of  English  more  than  is  commonly 
supposed.  I  meet  with  eyster  for  oyster 
as  early  as  the  fourteenth  century.  I  find 
dystrye  for  destroy  in  the  Coventry  Plays, 
viage  in  Bishop  Hall  and  Middleton  the 
dramatist,  bile  in  Donne  and  Chrononho- 
tonthologos,  line  in  Hall,  ryall  and  chyse 
(for  choice)  in  the  Coventry  Plays.  In 
Chapman's  "All  Fools"  is  the  misprint  of 
employ  for  imply,  fairly  inferring  an  iden- 
tity of  sound  in  the  last  syllable.  Indeed, 
this  pronunciation  was  habitual  till  after 
Pope,  and  Rogers  tells  us  that  the  elegant 
.Gray  said  naise  for  noise  just  as  our  rus- 
tics still  do.  Our  cornish  (which  I  find 
also  in  Herrick)  remembers  the  French 
better  than  cornice  does.  While,  clinging 
more  closely  to  the  Anglo-Saxon  in  drop- 
ping the  g  from  the  end  of  the  present  par- 
ticiple, the  Yankee  now  and  then  pleases 
himself  with  an  experiment  in  French  na- 
sality in  words  ending  in  n.  It  is  not,  so 
far  as  my  experience  goes,  very  common, 
though  it  may  formerly  have  been  more 
so.  Capting,  for  instance,  I  never  heard 
save  in  jest,  the  habitual  form  being  kepp'n. 
But  at  any  rate  it  is  no  invention  of  ours. 
In  that  delightful  old  volume,  "  Ane  Com- 
pendious Buke  of  Godly  and  Spirituall 
Songs,"  in  which  I  know  not  whether  the 
piety  itself  or  the  simplicity  of  its  expres- 
sion be  more  charming,  I  find  burding, 
garding,  and  cousing,  and  in  the  State 
Trials  uncerting  used  by  a  gentleman.  I 
confess  that  I  like  the  n  better  than  the  ng. 

Of  Yankee  preterites  I  find  risse  and  rize 
for  rose  in  Middleton  and  Dryden,  dim  in 
Spenser,  chees  (chose)  in  Sir  John  Man- 
devil,  give  (gave)  in  the  Coventry  Plays, 
shet  (shut)  in  Golding's  Ovid,*  het  in  Chap- 
man and  in  Weever's  Epitaphs,  thriv  and 
smit  in  Drayton,  quit  in  Ben  Jonson  and 
Henry  More,  and  pled  in  the  Paston 
Letters,  nay,  even  in  the  fastidious  Lan- 
dor.  Rid  for  rode  was  anciently  com- 
mon.   So  likewise  was  see  for  saw,  but  I 

*  Cited  in  Warton's  Obs.  Faery  Q. 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


215 


find  it  in  no  writer  of  authority  (except 
Golding),  unless  Chaucer's  seie  was  so 
sounded.  Shew  is  used  by  Hector  Boece, 
Giles  Fletcher,  Drummond  of  Hawthorn- 
den,  and  in  the  Paston  Letters.  Similar 
strong  preterites,  like  snew,  thew,  and  even 
mew,  are  not  without  example.  I  find  sew 
for  sewed  in  Piers  Ploughman.  Indeed,  the 
anomalies  in  English  preterites  are  per- 
plexing. We  have  probably  transferred 
flew  from  flow  (as  the  preterite  of  which  I 
have  heard  it)  to  fly  because  we  had  another 
preterite  in  fled.  Of  weak  preterites  the 
Yankee  retains  growed,  blowed,  for  which 
he  has  good  authority,  and  less  often 
knowed.  His  sot  is  merely  a  broad  sound- 
ing of  sat,  no  more  inelegant  than  the  com- 
mon got  lor  gat,  which  he  further  degrades 
into  gut.  When  he  says  darst,  he  uses  a 
form  as  old  as  Chaucer. 

The  Yankee  has  retained  something  of 
the  long  sound  of  the  a  in  such  words  as 
axe,  wax,  pronouncing  them  exe,  ivex 
(shortened  from  aix,  waix).  He  also  says 
hev  and  hed  {have,  had)  for  have  and  had. 
In  most  cases  he  follows  an  Anglo-Saxon 
usage.  In  aix  for  axle  he  certainly  does. 
I  find  wex  and  aisches  {ashes)  in  Pecock, 
and  exe  in  the  Paston  Letters.  Golding 
rhymes  wax  vfith.  wexe  and  spells  challenge 
chelenge.  Chaucer  wrote  hendy.  Dryden 
rhymes  can  with  men,  as  Mr.  Biglow 
would.  Alexander  Gill,  Milton's  teacher, 
in  his  "Logonomia"  cites  hez  for  hath  as 
peculiar  to  Lincolnshire.  I  find  hayth  in 
Collier's  "  Bibliographical  Account  of  Early 
English  Literature  "  under  the  date  1584, 
and  Lord  Cromwell  so  wrote  it.  Sir  Chris- 
topher Wren  wrote  belcony.  Our  feet  is 
only  the  0.  F.  faict.  Thaim  for  them  was 
common  in  the  sixteenth  century.  We 
have  an  example  of  the  same  thing  in  the 
double  form  of  the  verb  thrash,  thresh. 
While  the  New-Englander  cannot  be 
brought  to  say  instead  for  instid  (com- 
monly 'stid  where  not  the  last  word  in  a 
sentence),  he  changes  the  i  into  e  in  red  for 
rid,  tell  for  till,  hender  for  hinder,  rense 
for  rinse.  I  find  red  in  the  old  interlude 
of  "Thersytes,"  tell  in  a  letter  of  Daborne 
to  Henslowe,  and  also,  I  shudder  to  men- 
tion it,  in  a  letter  of  the  great  Duchess  of 
Marlborough,  Atossa  herself!  It  occurs 
twice  in  a  single  verse  of  the  Chester  Plays, 

"  Tell  the  day  of  dome,  tell  the  beames  blow." 

From  the  word  blow  is  formed  blowth, 
which  I  heard  again  this  summer  after  a 
long  interval.    Mr.  Wright*  explains  it  as 

*  Dictionary  of  Obsolete  and  Provincial 
English. 


meaning  "a  blossom."  With  us  a  single 
blossom  is  a  blow,  while  blowth  means  the 
blossoming  in  general.  A  farmer  would 
say  that  there  was  a  good  blowth  on  his 
fruit-trees.  The  word  retreats  farther  in- 
land and  away  from  the  railways,  year  by 
year.  Wither  rhymes  hinder  with  slender, 
and  Shakespeare  and  Lovelace  have  renclied 
for  rinsed.  In  "  Gammer  Gurton  "  is  sence 
for  since  ;  Marlborough's  Duchess  so  writes 
it,  and  Donne  rhymes  since  with  Amiens 
and  patience,  Bishop  Hall  and  Otway  with 
pretence,  Chapman  with  citizens,  Dryden 
with  providence.  Indeed,  why  should  not 
sithence  take  that  form  ?  Dryden's  wife 
(an  earl's  daughter)  has  tell  for  till,  Mar- 
garet, mother  of  Henry  VII.,  writes  seche 
for  such,  and  our  ef  finds  authority  in  the 
old  form  yeffe. 

E  sometimes  takes  the  place  of  u,  as 
jedge,  tredge,  bresh.  I  find  tredge  in  the 
interlude  of  "Jack  Jugler,"  bresh  in  a  ci- 
tation by  Collier  from  "London  Cries  "  of 
the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century,  and 
resche  for  rush  (fifteenth  century)  in  the 
very  valuable  "  Volume  of  Vocabularies  " 
edited  by  Mr.  Wright.  Resce  is  one  of  the 
Anglo-Saxon  forms  of  the  word  in  Bos- 
worth's  A.  S .  Dictionary.  Golding  has  shet. 
The  Yankee  always  shortens  the  u  in  the 
ending  ture,  making  ventur,  natur,  pictur, 
and  so  on.  This  was  common,  also,  among 
the  educated  of  the  last  generation.  I  am 
inclined  to  think  it  may  have  been  once 
universal,  and  I  certainly  think  it  more 
elegant  than  the  vile  vencher,  naycher, 
pickcher,  that  have  taken  its  place,  sound- 
ing like  the  invention  of  a  lexicographer 
with  his  mouth  full  of  hot  pudding.  Nash 
in  his  "  Pierce  Penniless  "  has  ventur,  and 
so  spells  it,  and  I  meet  it  also  in  Spenser, 
Drayton,  Ben  Jonson,  Herrick,  and  Prior. 
Spenser  has  torVrest,  which  can  be  con- 
tracted only  from  tortur  and  not  from 
torcher.  Quarles  rhymes  nature  with  cre- 
ator, and  Dryden  with  satire,  which  he 
doubtless  pronounced  according  to  its  older 
form  of  satyr.  Quarles  has  also  torture 
and  mortar.    Mary  Boleyn  writes  kreatur. 

I  shall  now  give  some  examples  which 
cannot  so  easily  be  ranked  under  any  spe- 
cial head.  Gill  charges  the  Eastern  coun- 
ties with  kiver  for  cover,  and  ta  for  to. 
The  Yankee  pronounces  both  too  and  to 
like  ta  (like  the  tou  in  touch)  where  they 
are  not  emphatic.  When  they  are,  both 
become  tu.  In  old  spelling,  to  is  the  com- 
mon (and  indeed  correct)  form  of  too,  which 
is  only  to  with  the  sense  of  in  addition. 
I  suspect  that  the  sound  of  our  too  has 
caught  something  from  the  French  tout, 
and  it  is  possible  that  the  old  too  too  is  not 
a  reduplication,  but  a  reminiscence  of  the 


216 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


feminine  form  of  the  same  word  (toute)  as 
anciently  pronounced,  with  the  e  not  yet 
silenced.  Gill  gives  a  Northern  origin  to 
geaun  for  gown  and  waund  for  wound 
{vulnus).  Lovelace  has  ivaund,  but  there 
is  something  too  dreadful  in  suspecting 
Spenser  (who  borealized  in  his  pastorals) 
of  having  ever  been  guilty  of  geaun  I  And 
yet  some  delicate  mouths  even  now  are 
careful  to  observe  the  Hibernicism  of 
ge-ard  for  guard,  and  ge-url  for  girl.  Sir 
Philip  Sidney  {credite  posted  /)  wrote  furr 
for  far.  I  would  hardly  have  believed  it 
had  I  not  seen  it  in  facsimile.  As  some 
consolation,  I  find  furder  in  Lord  Bacon 
and  Donne,  and  Wither  rhymes  far  with 
cur.  The  Yankee,  who  omits  the  final  d 
in  many  words,  as  do  the  Scotch,  makes 
up  for  it  by  adding  one  in  geound.  The 
purist  does  not  feel  the  loss  of  the  d  sen- 
sibly in  lawn  and  yon,  from  the  former  of 
which  it  has  dropped  again  after  a  wrong- 
ful adoption  (retained  in  laundry),  while 
it  properly  b-longs  to  the  latter.  But 
what  shall  we  make  of  git,  yit,  and  yis  1 
I  find  yis  and  git  in  Warner's  "  Albion's 
England,"  yet  rhyming  with  wit,  admit, 
and  Jit  in  Donne,  with  wit  in  the  "Re- 
venger's Tragedy,"  Beaumont,  and  Suck- 
ling, with  writ  in  Dryden,  and  latest  of  all 
with  wit  in  Sir  Hanbury  Williams.  Prior 
rhymes  fitting  and  begetting.  Worse  is  to 
come.  Among  others,  Donne  rhymes  again 
with  sin,  and  Quarles  repeatedly  with  in. 
Ben  for  been,  of  which  our  dear  Whittier 
is  so  fond,  has  the  authority  of  Sackville, 
"Gammer  Gurton"  (the  work  of  a  bishop), 
Chapman,  Dryden,  and  many  more,  though 
bin  seems  to  have  been  the  common  form. 
Whittier's  accenting  the  first  syllable  of 
rom'ance  finds  an  accomplice  in  Drayton 
among  others,  and  though  manifestly 
wrong,  is  analogous  with  Rom'ans.  Of 
other  Yankeeisms,  whether  of  form  or  pro- 
nunciation, which  I  have  met  with  I  add  a 
few  at  random.  Pecock  writes  sowdiers 
{sogers,  soudoyers),  and  Chapman  and  Gill 
sodder.  This  absorption  of  the  I  is  com- 
mon in  various  dialects,  especially  in  the 
Scottish.  Pecock  writes  also  biyende,  and 
the  authors  of  "Jack  Jugler"  and  "  Gam- 
mer Gurton"  yender.  The  Yankee  in- 
cludes "  yon "  in  the  same  category,  and 
says  "hither  an'  yen,"  for  "to  and  fro." 
(Cf.  German  jenseits. )  Pecock  and  plenty 
more  have  wrastle.  Tindal  has  agynste, 
gretter,  shett,  ondone,  debyte,  and  scace. 
"Jack  Jugler"  has  scacely  (which  I  have 
often  heard,  though  skurce  is  the  common 
form),  and  Donne  and  Dryden  make  great 
rhyme  with  set.  In  the  inscription  on 
Caxton's  tomb  I  find  ynd  for  end,  which 
the  Yankee  more  often  makes  eend,  still 


using  familiarly  the  old  phrase  "  right 
anend1'  for  "  continuously."  His  "  stret 
(straight)  along"  in  the  same  sense,  which 
I  thought  peculiar  to  him,  I  find  in  Pecock. 
Tindal's  debyte  for  deputy  is  so  perfectly 
Yankee  that  I  could  almost  fancy  the  brave 
martyr  to  have  been  deacon  of  the  First 
Parish  at  Jaalam  Centre.  "Jack  Jugler" 
further  gives  us  play  sent  and  sartayne. 
Dryden  rliymes  certain  with  parting,  and 
Chapman  and  Ben  Jonson  use  certain,  as 
the  Yankee  always  does,  for  certainly. 
The  "  Coventry  Mysteries  "  have  occapied, 
massage,  nateralle,  materal  {material), 
and  meracles,  —  all  excellent  Yankeeisms. 
In  the  "Quatre  fils,  Aymon"  (1504),*  is 
vertus  for  virtuous.  Thomas  Fuller  called 
volume  vollum,  I  suspect,  for  he  spells  it 
volumne.  However,  per  contra,  Yankees 
habitually  say  colume  for  column.  In- 
deed, to  prove  that  our  ancestors  brought 
their  pronunciation  with  them  from  the 
Old  Country,  and  have  not  wantonly  de- 
based their  mother  tongue,  I  need  only  to 
cite  the  words  scriptur,  Israll,  athists,  and 
cherfulness  from  Governor  Bradford's 
"  History."  So  the  good  man  wrote  them, 
and  so  the  good  descendants  of  his  fellow- 
exiles  still  pronounce  them.  Brampton 
Gurdon  writes  shet  in  a  letter  to  Winthrop. 
Purtend  {pretend)  has  crept  like  a  serpent 
into  the  "Paradise  of  Dainty  Devices"; 
purvide,  which  is  not  so  bad,  is  in  Chaucer. 
These,  of  course,  are  universal  vulgarisms, 
and  not  peculiar  to  the  Yankee.  Butler 
has  a  Yankee  phrase,  and  pronunciation 
too,  in  "To  which  these  carr'ings-on  did 
tend."  Langham  or  Laneham,  who  wrote 
an  account  of  the  festivities  at  Kenil worth 
in  honor  of  Queen  Bess,  and  who  evidently 
tried  to  spell  phonetically,  makes  sorrows 
into  sororz.  Herrick  writes  hollow  for 
halloo,  and  perhaps  pronounced  it  {h<rr- 
resco  suggerens !)  holla,  as  Yankees  do. 
Why  not,  when  it  comes  from  hold  ?  I 
fiwA  ffelaschyppe  (fellowship)  in  the  Coven- 
try Plays.  Speuser  and  his  queen  neither 
of  them  scrupled  to  write  afore,  and  the 
former  feels  no  inelegance  even  in  chaw 
and  idee.  1 'Fore  was  common  till  after 
Herrick.  Dryden  has  do's  for  does,  and 
his  wife  spells  worse  wosce.  A  feared  was 
once  universal.  Warner  has  ery  for  ever  a  ; 
nay,  he  also  has  illy,  with  which  we  were 
once  ignorantly  reproached  by  persons 
more  familiar  with  Murray's  Grammar 
than  with  English  literature.  And  why 
not  illy  1  Mr.  Bartlett  says  it  is  "a  word 
used  by  writers  of  an  inferior  class,  who 
do  not  seem  to  perceive  that  ill  is  itself  an 

*  Cited  in  Collier.  (I  give  my  authority 
where  I  do  not  quote  from  the  original  book.) 


INTRODUCTION. 


217 


adverb,  without  the  termination  ly"  and 
quotes  Dr.  Messer,  President  of  Brown 
University,  as  asking  triumphantly,  "  Why 
don't  you  say  welly  1 "  I  should  like  to 
have  had  Dr.  Messer  answer  his  own  ques- 
tion. It  would  be  truer  to  say  that  it  was 
used  by  people  who  still  remembered  that 
ill  was  an  adjective,  the  shortened  form  of 
evil,  out  of  which  Shakespeare  ventured  to 
make  evilly.  I  find  illy  in  Warner.  The 
objection  to  illy  is  not  an  etymological 
one,  but  simply  that  it  is  contrary  to  good 
usage,  —  a  very  sufficient  reason.  Ill  as 
an  adverb  was  at  first  a  vulgarism,  pre- 
cisely like  the  rustic's  when  he  says,  "  I 
was  treated  bad.1"  May  not  the  reason  of 
this  exceptional  form  be  looked  for  in  that 
tendency  to  dodge  what  is  hard  to  pro- 
nounce, to  which  I  have  already  alluded  ? 
If  the  letters  were  distinctly  uttered,  as 
they  should  be,  it  would  take  too  much 
time  to  say  ill-ly,  tvell-ly,  and  it  is  to  be 
observed  that  we  have  avoided  smally*  and 
tally  in  the  same  way,  though  we  add  ish 
to  them  without  hesitation  in  smallish  and 
tallish.  We  have,  to  be  sure,  dully  and 
fully,  but  for  the  one  we  prefer  stupidly, 
and  the  other  (though  this  may  have  come 
from  eliding  the  y  before  as)  is  giving  way 
to  full.  The  uneducated,  whose  utterance 
is  slower,  still  make  adverbs  when  they 
will  by  adding  like  to  all  manner  of  adjec- 
tives. We  have  had  big  charged  upon  us, 
because  we  use  it  where  an  Englishman 
would  now  use  great.  I  fully  admit  that 
it  were  better  to  distinguish  between  them, 
allowing  to  big  a  certain  contemptuous 
quality  ;  but  as  for  authority,  T  want  none 
better  than  that  of  Jeremy  Taylor,  who, 
in  his  noble  sermon  "On  the  Return  of 
Prayer,"  speaks  of  "Jesus,  whose  spirit 
was  meek  and  gentle  up  to  the  greatness 
of  the  biggest  example. "  As  for  our  double 
negative,  I  shall  waste  no  time  in  quoting 
instances  of  it,  because  it  was  once  as  uni- 
versal in  English  as  it  still  is  in  the  neo- 
Latin  languages,  where  it  does  not  strike 
us  as  vulgar.  I  am  not  sure  that  the  loss 
of  it  is  not  to  be  regretted.  But  surely 
I  shall  admit  the  vulgarity  of  slurring  or 
altogether  eliding  certain  terminal  conso- 
nants ?  I  admit  that  a  clear  and  sharp-cut 
enunciation  is  one  of  the  crowning  charms 
and  elegancies  of  speech.  Words  so  ut- 
tered are  like  coins  fresh  from  the  mint, 
compared  with  the  worn  and  dingy  drudges 
of  long  service,  —  I  do  not  mean  American 
coins,  for  those  look  less  badly  the  more 
they  lose  of  their  original  ugliness.  No 
one  is  more  painfully  conscious  than  I  of 

*  The  word  occurs  in  a  letter  of  Mary  Boleyn, 
in  Golding,  and  Warner. 


the  contrast  between  the  rifle-crack  of  an 
Englishman's  yes  and  and  the  wet-fuse 
drawl  of  the  same  monosyllables  in  the 
mouths  of  my  countrymen.  But  I  do  not 
find  the  dropping  of  final  consonants  disa- 
greeable in  Allan  Ramsay  or  Burns,  nor  do 
1  believe  that  our  literary  ancestors  were 
sensible  of  that  inelegance  in  the  fusing 
them  together  of  which  we  are  conscious. 
How  many  educated  men  pronounce 
the  t  in  chestnut  1  how  many  say  pent- 
ise  for  penthouse,  as  they  should  ?  When 
a  Yankee  skipper  says  that  he  is  "boun' 
for  Gloster  "  (not  Gloucester,  with  the  leave 
of  the  Universal  Schoolmaster),  he  but 
speaks  like  Chaucer  or. an  old  ballad-singer, 
though  they  would  have  pronounced  it 
boon.  This  is  one  of  the  cases  where  the 
d  is  surreptitious,  and  has  been  added  in 
compliment  to  the  verb  bind,  with  which 
it  has  nothing  to  do.  If  we  consider  the 
root  of  the  word  (though  of  course  I  grant 
that  every  race  has  a  right  to  do  what  it 
will  with  what  is  so  peculiarly  its  own  as 
its  speech),  the  d  has  no  more  right  there 
than  at  the  end  of  gone,  where  it  is  often 
put  by  children,  who  are  our  best  guides 
to  the  sources  of  linguistic  corruption,  and 
the  best  teachers  of  its  processes.  Crom- 
well, minister  of  Henry  VIII.,  writes  worle 
for  ivorld.  Chapman  has  wan  for  toand, 
and  lawn  has  rightfully  displaced  laund, 
though  with  no  thought,  I  suspect,  of  ety- 
mology. Rogers  tells  us  that  Lady  Ba- 
thurst  sent  him  some  letters  written  to 
William  III.  by  Queen  Mary,  in  which 
she  addresses  him  as ' '  Dear  H usban. "  The 
old  form  expoun',  which  our  farmers  use, 
is  more  correct  than  the  form  with  a  bar- 
barous d  tacked  on  which  has  taken  its 
place.  Of  the  kind  opposite  to  this,  like 
our  gownd  for  goivn,  and  the  London  cock- 
ney's wind  for  wine,  I  find  droivnd  lor 
drown  in  the  "Misfortunes  of  Arthur" 
(1584),  and  in  Swift.  And,  by  the  way, 
whence  came  the  long  sound  of  wind  which 
our  poets  still  retain,  and  which  survives 
in  "winding"  a  horn,  a  totally  different 
word  from  "  winding  "  a  kite-string  ?  We 
say  behind  and  hinder  (comparative),  and 
yet  to  hinder.  Shakespeare  pronounced 
kind  kind,  or  what  becomes  of  his  play  on 
that  word  and  kin  in  Hamlet  ?  Nay,  did 
he  not  even  (shall  I  dare  to  hint  it?)  drop 
the  final  d  as  the  Yankee  still  does  ?  John 
Lilly  plays  in  the  same  way  on  kindred 
and  kindness.  But  to  come  to  some  other 
ancient  instances.  Warner  rhymes  bounds 
with  crowns,  grounds  with  towns,  text  with 
sex,  ivorst  with  crust,  interrupts  with  cups; 
Drayton,  defects  with  sex ;  Chapman, 
amends  with  cleanse ;  Webster,  defects 
with  checks;  Ben  Jonson,  minds  with 


218 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


combines ;  Marston,  trust  and  obsequious, 
clothes  and  shows  ;  Dryden  gives  the  same 
sound  to  clothes,  and  has  also  minds  with 
designs.  Of  course,  I  do  not  affirm  that 
their  ears  may  not  have  told  them  that 
these  were  imperfect  rhymes  (though  I  am 
by  no  means  sure  even  of  that),  but  they 
surely  would  never  have  tolerated  any  such 
had  they  suspected  the  least  vulgarity  in 
them.  Prior  has  the  rhyme  first  and  trust, 
hut  puts  it  into  the  mouth  of  a  landlady. 
Swift  has  stunted  and  burnt  it,  an  inten- 
tionally imperfect  rhyme,  no  doubt,  but 
which  I  cite  as  giving  precisely  the  Yankee 
pronunciation  of  burned.  Donne  couples 
in  unhallowed  wedlock  after  and  matter, 
thus  seeming  to  give  to  both  the  true  Yan- 
kee sound  ;  and  it  is  not  uncommon  to  find 
after  and  daughter.  Worse  than  all,  in 
one  of  Dodsley's  Old  Plays  we  have  onions 
rhyming  with  minions,  —  I  have  tears  in 
my  eyes  while  I  record  it.  And  yet  what 
is  viler  than  the  universal  Misses  {Mrs.) 
for  Mistress  $  This  was  once  a  vulgarism, 
and  in  "The  Miseries  of  Inforced  Mar- 
riage" the  rhyme  (printed  as  prose  in 
Dodsley's  Old  Plays  by  Collier), 

"  To  make  my  young  mistress, 
Delighting  in  kisses" 

is  put  in  the  mouth  of  the  clown.  Our 
people  say  Injun  for  Indian.  The  ten- 
dency to  make  this  change  where  i  follows 
d  is  common.  The  Italian  giorno  and 
French  jour  from  diurnus  are  familiar  ex- 
amples. And  yet  Injun  is  one  of  those 
depravations  which  the  taste  challenges 
peremptorily,  though  it  have  the  authority 
of  Charles  Cotton  —  who  rhymes  "  Indies" 
with  "cringes"  —  and  four  English  lexi- 
cographers, beginning  with  Dr.  Sheridan, 
bid  us  say  invidgeous.  Yet  after  all  it  is 
no  worse  than  the  debasement  which  all 
our  terminations  in  tion  and  tience  have 
undergone,  which  yet  we  hear  with  resig- 
nashun  and  payshunce,  though  it  might 
have  aroused  both  impatience  and  indig- 
na-ti-on  in  Shakespeare's  time.  When 
George  Herbert  tells  us  that  if  the  sermon 
be  dull, 

*'  God  takes  a  text  and  preacheth  pati-ence," 

the  prolongation  of  the  word  seems  to  con- 
vey some  hint  at  the  longanimity  of  the 
virtue.  Consider  what  a  poor  curtal  we 
have  made  of  Ocean.  There  was  some- 
thing of  his  heave  and  expanse  in  o-ce-an, 
and  Fletcher  knew  how  to  use  it  when  he 
wrote  so  fine  a  verse  as  the  second  of  these, 
the  best  deep-sea  verse  I  know,  — 

"  In  desperate  storms  stem  with  a  little  rudder 
The  tumbling  ruins  of  the  ocean." 


Oceanus  was  not  then  wholly  shorn  of  his 
divine  proportions,  and  our  modern  oshun 
sounds  like  the  gush  of  small-beer  in  com- 
parison. Some  other  contractions  of  ours 
have  a  vulgar  air  about  them.  More  'n  for 
more  than,  as  one  of  the  worst,  may  stand 
for  a  type  of  such.  Yet  our  old  dramatists 
are  full  of  such  obscurations  (elisions  they 
can  hardly  be  called)  of  the  th,  making 
ivhe'r  of  whether,  bro'r  of  brother,  smo"r  of 
smother,  moW  of  mother,  and  so  on.  In- 
deed, it  is  this  that  explains  the  word  rare 
(which  has  Dryden's  support),  and  which 
we  say  of  meat  where  an  Englishman  would 
use  underdone.  I  do  not  believe,  with  the 
dictionaries,  that  it  had  ever  anything  to 
do  with  the  Icelandic  hrar  (raw),  as  it 
plainly  has  not  in  rareripe,  which  means 
earlier  ripe.  And  I  do  not  believe  it,  for 
this  reason,  that  the  earlier  form  of  the 
word  with  us  was,  and  the  commoner  now 
in  the  inland  parts  still  is,  so  far  as  I  can 
discover,  raredone.  Golding  has  "egs 
reere-rosted. "  I  find  rather  as  a  monosyl- 
lable in  Donne,  and  still  better,  as  giving 
the  sound,  rhyming  with  fair  in  Warner. 
There  is  an  epigram  of  Sir  Thomas  Browne 
in  which  the  words  rather  than  make 
a  monosyllable  : 

"What  furie  is 't  to  take  Death's  part 
And  rather  than  by  Nature,  die  by  Art ! " 

The  contraction  more  'n  I  find  in  the  old 
play  "  Fuimus  Troes,"  in  a  verse  where 
the  measure  is  so  strongly  accented  as  to 
leave  it  beyond  doubt,  — 

"A  golden  crown  whose  heirs 
More  than  half  the  world  subdue." 

It  may  be,  however,  that  the  contraction  is 
in  "th'  orld."  It  is  unmistakable  in  the 
"  Second  Maiden's  Tragedy  "  :  — 

"  It  were  but  folly, 
Dear  soul,  to  boast  of  more  than  I  can  perform." 

Is  our  gin  for  given  more  violent  than 
mar'l  for  marvel,  which  was  once  common, 
and  which  I  find  as  late  as  Herrick  ?  Nay, 
Herrick  has  gin  (spelling  it  g'en),  too,  as 
do  the  Scotch,  who  agree  with  us  likewise 
in  preferring  chimly  to  chimney. 

I  will  now  leave  pronunciation  and  turn 
to  words  or  phrases  which  have  been  sup- 
posed peculiar  to  us,  only  pausing  to  pick 
up  a  single  dropped  stitch,  in  the  pronun- 
ciation of  the  word  sup'reme,  which  I  had 
thought  native  till  I  found  it  in  the  well- 
languaged  Daniel.  I  will  begin  with  a 
word  of  which  I  have  never  met  with  any 
example  in  print.  We  express  the  first 
stage  of  withering  in  a  green  plant  sudden- 


INTRODUCTION. 


219 


ly  cut  down  by  the  verb  to  wilt.  It  is,  of 
course,  own  cousin  of  the  German  welken, 
but  I  have  never  come  upon  it  in  print, 
and  my  own  books  of  reference  give  me 
faint  help.  Graff  gives  welhen,  marcescere, 
and  refers  to  weih  (weak),  and  conjectur- 
ally  to  A.  S.  hvelan.  The  A.  S.  wealwian 
(to  wither)  is  nearer,  but  not  so  near  as 
two  words  in  the  Icelandic,  which  perhaps 
put  us  on  the  track  of  its  ancestry,  —  velgi 
tepefacere  (and  velki,  with  the  derivative) 
meaning  contaminare.  Wilt,  at  any  rate, 
is  a  good  word,  filling,  as  it  does,  a  sensible 
gap  between  drooping  and  withering,  and 
the  imaginative  phrase  "  he  wilted  right 
down,"  like  "he  caved  right  in,"  is  a  true 
Americanism.  Wilt  occurs  in  English  pro- 
vincial glossaries,  but  is  explained  by 
wither,  which  with  us  it  does  not  mean. 
We  have  a  few  words  such  as  cache,  cohog, 
carry  (portage),  shoot  (chute),  timber  (for- 
est), bushwhack  (to  pull  a  boat  along  by 
the  bushes  on  the  edge  of  a  stream),  buck- 
eye (a  picturesque  word  for  the  horse-chest- 
nut) ;  but  how  many  can  we  be  said  to 
have  fairly  brought  into  the  language,  as 
Alexander  Gill,  who  first  mentions  Ameri- 
canisms, meant  it  when  he  said,  "  Sedet  ab 
Americanis  nonnulla  mutuamur  ut  maiz 
et  canoa  "  ?  Very  few,  I  suspect,  and 
those  mostly  by  borrowing  from  the 
French,  German,  Spanish,  or  Indian. 
"The  Dipper"  for  the  "Great  Bear" 
strikes  me  as  having  a  native  air.  Bogus, 
in  the  sense  of  worthless,  is  undoubtedly 
ours,  but  is,  I  more  than  suspect,  a  corrup- 
tion of  the  French  bagasse  (from  low  Latin 
bagasea),  which  travelled  up  the  Missis- 
sippi from  New  Orleans,  where  it  was  used 
for  the  refuse  of  the  sugar-cane.  It  is  true, 
we  have  modified  the  meaning  of  some 
words.  We  use  freshet  in  the  sense  of 
flood,  for  which  I  have  not  chanced  upon 
any  authority.  Our  New  England  cross 
between  Ancient  Pistol  and  Dugald  Dal- 
getty,  Captain  Underhill,  uses  the  word 
(1638  )  to  mean  a  current,  and  I  do  not 
recollect  it  elsewhere  in  that  sense.  I 
therefore  leave  it  with  a  $  for  future  ex- 
plorers. Crick  for  creek  I  find  in  Captain 
John  Smith  and  in  the  dedication  of  Ful- 
ler's "  Holy  Warre,"  and  run,  meaning  a 
small  stream,  in  Waymouth's  "Voyage" 
(1605).  Humans  for  men,  which  Mr.  Bart- 
lett  includes  in  his  "  Dictionary  of  Ameri- 
canisms," is  Chapman's  habitual  phrase  in 
his  translation  of  Homer.  I  find  it  also 
in  the  old  play  of  "The  Hog  hath  lost  his 
Pearl. "  Dogs  for  andirons  is  still  current 
in  New  England,  and  in  Walter  de  Bibles- 
worth  I  find,  chiens  glossed  in  the  margin 
by  andirons.  Gunning,  for  shooting  is  in 
Drayton.    We  once  got  credit  for  the  po- 


etical word  fall  for  autumn,  but  Mr.  Bart- 
lett  and  the  last  edition  of  Webster's  Dic- 
tionary refer  us  to  Dryden.  It  is  even 
older,  for  I  find  it  in  Drayton,  and  Bishop 
Hall  has  autumn  fall.  Middleton  plays 
upon  the  word  :  "  May'st  thou  have  a  rea- 
sonable good  spring,  for  thou  art  like  to 
have  many  dangerous  foul  falls."  Daniel 
does  the  same,  and  Coleridge  uses  it  as  we 
do.  Gray  uses  the  archaism  picked  for 
peaked,  and  the  word  smudge  (as  our 
backwoodsmen  do)  for  a  smothered  fire. 
Lord  Herbert  of  Cherbury  (more  prop- 
erly perhaps  than  even  Sidney,  the  last 
preux  chevalier )  has  "the  Emperor's  folks  " 
just  as  a  Yankee  would  say  it.  Loan  for 
lend,  with  which  we  have  hitherto  been 
blackened,  I  must  retort  upon  the  mother 
island,  for  it  appears  so  long  ago  as  in 
"  Albion's  England. "  Fleshy,  in  the  sense 
of  stout,  may  claim  Ben  Jonson's  warrant. 
Chore  is  also  Jonson's  word,  and  I  am 
inclined  to  prefer  it  to  chare  and  char,  be- 
cause I  think  that  I  see  a  more  natural 
origin  for  it  in  the  French  jour  —  whence 
it  might  come  to  mean  a  day's  work,  and 
thence  a  job  —  than  anywhere  else.  At 
onst  for  at  once  I  thought  a  corruption  of 
our  own,  till  I  found  it  in  the  Chester 
Plays.  I  am  now  inclined  to  suspect  it 
no  corruption  at  all,  but  only  an  erratic 
and  obsolete  superlative  at  onest.  To 
progress'  was  flung  in  our  teeth  till 
Mr.  Pickering  retorted  with  Shakespeare's 
"doth  pro'gress  down  thy  cheeks."  I 
confess  that  I  was  never  satisfied  with 
this  answer,  because  the  accent  was  differ- 
ent, and  because  the  word  might  here  be 
reckoned  a  substantive  quite  as  well  as 
a  verb.  Mr.  Bartlett  (in  his  dictionary 
above  cited)  adds  a  surrebutter  in  a  verse 
from  Ford's  "Broken  Heart."  Here  the 
word  is  clearly  a  verb,  but  with  the  accent 
unhappily  still  on  the  first  syllable.  Mr. 
Bartlett  says  that  he  "  cannot  say  whether 
the  word  was  used  in  Bacon's  time  or 
not."  It  certainly  was,  and  with  the  ac- 
cent we  give  to  it.  Ben  Jonson,  in  the 
"Alchemist,"  has  this  verse, 

<<  Progress'  so  from  extreme  unto  extreme," 

and  Sir  Philip  Sidney, 

"  Progressing  then  from  fair  Turias'  golden 
place." 

Surely  we  may  now  sleep  in  peace,  and 
our  English  cousins  will  forgive  us,  since 
we  have  cleared  ourselves  from  any  suspi- 
cion of  originality  in  the  matter  !  Poor 
for  lean,  thirds  for  dower,  and  dry  for 
thirsty  I  find  in  Middleton's  plays.  Dry 
is  also  in  Skelton  and  in  the  "World" 


220 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


(1754).  In  a  note  on  Middleton,  Mr. 
I)yce  thinks  it  needful  to  explain  the 
phrase  /  can't  tell  (universal  in  America) 
by  the  gloss  /  could  not  say.  Middleton 
also  uses  snecked,  which  I  had  believed  an 
Americanism  till  I  saw  it  there.  It  is,  of; 
course,  only  another  form  of  snatch,  analo- 
geous  to  theek  and  thatch  (cf.  the  proper 
names  Dekker  and  Thacher),  break  {brack) 
and  breach,  make  (still  common  with  us) 
and  match.  'Long  on  for  occasioned  by 
("  who  is  this  'long  on  ?")  occurs  likewise 
in  Middleton.  'Cause  why  is  in  Chaucer. 
Raising  (an  English  version  of  the  French 
leaven)  for  yeast  is  employed  by  Gayton 
in  his  "Festivous  Notes  on  Don  Quixote." 
I  have  never  seen  an  instance  of  our  New 
England  word  emptins  in  the  same  sense, 
nor  can  I  divine  its  original.  Gayton  has 
limekill ;  also  shuts  for  shutters,  and  the 
latter  is  used  by  Mrs.  Hutchinson  in  her 
"Life  of  Colonel  Hutchinson."  Bishop 
Hall,  and  Purchas  in  his  "  Pilgrims,"  have 
chist  for  chest,  and  it  is  certainly  nearer 
cist  a,  as  well  as  to  its  form  in  the  Teu- 
tonic languages,  whence  probably  we  got 
it.  We  retain  the  old  sound  in  cist,  but 
chest  is  as  old  as  Chaucer.  Lovelace  says 
wropt  for  wrapt.  "  Musicianer  "  I  had  al- 
ways associated  with  the  militia-musters 
of  my  boyhood,  and  too  hastily  concluded 
it  an  abomination  of  our  own,  but  Mr. 
Wright  calls  it  a  Norfolk  word,  and  I  find 
it  to  be  as  old  as  1642  by  an  extract  in 
Collier.  "Not  worth  the  time  of  day" 
had  passed  with  me  for  native  till  I  saw 
it  in  Shakespeare's  "Pericles."  For  slick 
(which  is  only  a  shorter  sound  of  sleek, 
like  crick  and  the  now  universal  britches 
for  breeches)  I  will  only  call  Chapman 
and  Jonson.  "That 's  a  sure  card  !  "  and 
"That's  a  stinger!"  both  sound  like 
modern  slang,  but  you  will  find  the  one 
in  the  old  interlude  of  "  Thersytes"  (1537), 
and  the  other  in  Middleton.  "Right 
here"  a  favorite  phrase  with  our  orators 
and  with  a  certain  class  of  our  editors, 
turns  up  passim  in  the  Chester  and  Cov- 
entry plays.  Mr.  Dickens  found  some- 
thing very  ludicrous  in  what  he  considered 
our  neologism  right  away.  But  I  find  a 
phrase  very  like  it,  and  which  I  would 
gladly  suspect  to  be  a  misprint  for  it,  in 
"  Gammer  Gurton  "  :  — 

" Lyght  it  and  bring  it  tite  away." 

After  all,  what  is  it  but  another  form 
of  straightway  1  Cussedness,  meaning 
wickedness,  malignity,  and  cuss,  a  sneak- 
ing, ill-natured  fellow,  in  such  phrases  as 
"  He  done  it  out  o'  pure  cussedness,"  and 
"  He  is  a  nateral  cuss,"  have  been  com- 1 


monly  thought  Yankeeisms.  To  vent  cer- 
tain contemptuously  indignant  moods  they 
are  admirable  in  their  rough-and-ready 
way.  But  neither  is  our  own.  Cursyd- 
nesse,  in  the  same  sense  of  malignant 
wickedness,  occurs  in  the  Coventry  Plays, 
and  cuss  may  perhaps  claim  to  have  come 
in  with  the  Conqueror.  At  least  the  term 
is  also  French.  Saint  Simon  uses  it  and 
confesses  its  usefulness.  Speaking  of  the 
Abbe  Dubois,  he  says,  "  Qui  etoit  en 
plein  ce  qu'un  mauvais  francois  appelle  un 
sacre,  mais  qui  ne  se  peut  guere  exprimer 
autrement."  "  Not  worth  a  cuss,"  though 
supported  by  "not  worth  a  damn,"  may 
be  a  mere  corruption,  since  "  not  worth  a 
cress"  is  in  "Piers  Ploughman."  "I 
don't  see  it"  was  the  popular  slang  a 
year  or  two  ago,  and  seemed  to  spring 
from  the  soil ;  but  no,  it  is  in  Gib- 
ber's "Careless  Husband."  Green  sauce 
for  'vegetables  I  meet  in  Beaumont  and 
Fletcher,  Gayton,  and  elsewhere.  Our 
rustic  pronunciation  sahce  (for  either  the 
diphthong  au  was  anciently  pronounced  ah, 
or  else  we  have  followed  abundant  analogy 
in  changing  it  to  the  latter  sound,  as  we 
have  in  chance,  dance,  and  so  many  more) 
may  be  the  older  one,  and  at  least  gives 
some  hint  at  its  ancestor  scdsa.  Warn, 
in  the  sense  of  notify,  is,  I  believe,  now 
peculiar  to  us,  but  Pecock  so  employs  it. 
To  cotton  to  is,  I  rather  think,  an  Ameri- 
canism. The  nearest  approach  to  it  I  have 
found  is  cotton  together,  in  Congreve's 
"  Love  for  Love."  To  cotton  or  cotten,  in 
another  sense,  is  old  and  common.  Our 
word  means  to  cling,  and  its  origin,  pos- 
sibly, is  to  be  sought  in  another  direction, 
perhaps  in  A.  S.  cvead,  which  means  mud, 
clay  (both  proverbially  clinging),  or  better 
yet,  in  the  Icelandic  qvoda  (otherwise 
kod),  meaning  resin  and  glue,  which  are 
kclt  egoxvv  sticky  substances.  To  spit  cot- 
ton is,  I  think,  American,  and  also,  per- 
haps, to  flax  for  to  beat.  To  the  halves 
still  survives  among  us,  though  apparently 
obsolete  in  England.  It  means  either  to 
let  or  to  hire  a  piece  of  land,  receiving  half 
the  profit  in  money  or  in  kind  {partibus 
locare).  I  mention  it  because  in  a  note 
by  some  English  editor,  to  which  I  have 
lost  my  reference,  I  have  seen  it  wrongly 
explained.  The  editors  of  Nares  cite  Bur- 
ton. To  put,  in  the  sense  of  to  go,  as  Put  I 
for  Begone!  would  seem  our  own,  and  yet 
it  is  strictly  analogous  to  the  French  se 
mettre  d  la  voie,  and  the  Italian  mettersi  in 
via.    Indeed,  Dante  has  a  verse, 

"  Io  sarei  [for  mi  sarei]  gia  messo  per  lo  sentiero" 

which,  but  for  the  indignity,  might  be 
translated, 


INTRODUCTION. 


221 


I  should,  ere  this,  have  put  along  the  way." 

I  deprecate  in  advance  any  share  in 
General  Banks's  notions  of  international 
law,  but  we  may  all  take  a  just  pride  in 
his  exuberant  eloquence  as  something 
distinctively  American.  When  he  spoke  a 
few  years  ago  of  "  letting  the  Union  slide," 
even  those  who,  for  political  purposes,  re- 
proached him  with  the  sentiment,  admired 
the  indigenous  virtue  of  his  phrase.  Yet 
I  find.  "  let  the  world  slide  "  in  Heywood's 
"Edward  IV.";  and  in  Beaumont  and 
Fletcher's  "Wit  without  Money"  Valen- 
tine says, 

"  Will  you  go  drink, 
And  let  the  world  slide? " 

So  also  in  Sidney's  Arcadia, 

'*  Let  his  dominion  slide." 

In  the  one  case  it  is  put  into  the  mouth  of 
a  clown,  in  the  other,  of  a  gentleman,  and 
was  evidently  proverbial.  It  has  even 
higher  sanction,  for  Chaucer  writes, 

"  Well  nigh  all  other  cures  let  he  slide." 

Mr.  Bartlett  gives  "above  one's  bend"  as 
an  Americanism;  but  compare  Hamlet's 
"to  the  top  of  my  bent."  In  his  tracks 
for  immediately  has  acquired  an  American 
accent,  and  passes  where  he  can  for  a 
native,  but  is  an  importation  nevertheless  ; 
for  what  is  he  but  the  Latin  e  vestigio,  or 
at  best  the  Norman  French  eneslespas, 
both  which  have  the  same  meaning  ?  Hot- 
foot (provincial  also  in  England),  I  find  in 
the  old  romance  of  "Tristan," 

*'  Si  s'en  parti  chaut  pas." 

Like  for  as  is  never  used  in  New  England, 
but  is  universal  in  the  South  and  West. 
It  has  on  its  side  the  authority  of  two 
kings  (ego  sum  rex  Romanorum  et  supra 
grammaticam)1  Henry  VIII.  and  Charles 
I.  This  were  ample,  without  throwing 
into  the  scale  the  scholar  and  poet  Daniel. 
Them  was  used  as  a  nominative  by  the 
majesty  of  Edward  VI.,  by  Sir  P.  Hoby, 
and  by  Lord  Paget  (in  Froude's  "  His- 
tory"). I  have  never  seen  any  passage 
adduced  where  guess  was  used  as  the 
Yankee  uses  it.  The  word  was  familiar  in 
the  mouths  of  our  ancestors,  but  with  a  dif- 
ferent shade  of  meaning  from  that  we  have 
given  it,  which  is  something  like  rather 
think,  though  the  Yankee  implies  a  confi- 
dent certainty  by  it  when  he  says,  '  1 1 
guess  I  du  !  "  There  are  two  examples  in 
Otway,  one  of  which  ("  So  in  the  struggle, 
I  guess  the  note  was  lost")  perhaps  might 
serve  our  purpose,  and  Coleridge's 

"  I  guess 't  was  fearful  there  to  see  " 


certainly  comes  very  near.  But  I  have 
a  higher  authority  than  either  in  Selden, 
who,  in  one  of  his  notes  to  the  "  Polyol- 
bion,"  writes,  "The  first  inventor  of  them 
(I  guess  you  dislike  not  the  addition)  was 
one  Berthold  Swartz."  Here  he  must 
mean  by  it,  "I  take  it  for  granted." 
Another  peculiarity  almost  as  prominent 
is  the  beginning  sentences,  especially  in 
answer  to  questions,  with  "well."  Put 
before  such  a  phrase  as  "  How  d'e  do  ? "  it 
is  commonly  short,  and  has  the  sound  of 
ioul,  but  in  reply  it  is  deliberative,  and 
the  various  shades  of  meaning  which  can 
be  conveyed  by  difference  of  intonation, 
and  by  prolonging  or  abbreviating,  I  should 
vainly  attempt  to  describe.  I  have  heard 
ooa-ahl,  wahl,  ahl,  wed,  and  something 
nearly  approaching  the  sound  of  the  le  in 
able.  Sometimes  before  "  I  "  it  dwindles 
to  a  mere  I,  as  "  '1  /  dunno."  A  friend  of 
mine  (why  should  I  not  please  myself, 
though  I  displease  him,  by  brightening 
my  page  with  the  initials  of  the  most  ex- 
quisite of  humorists,  J.  H.  ?)  told  me  that 
he  once  heard  five  "wells,"  like  pioneers, 
precede  the  answer  to  an  inquiry  about 
the  price  of  land.  The  first  was  the 
ordinary  wul,  in  deference  to  custom  ; 
the  second,  the  long,  perpending  ooahl, 
with  a  falling  inflection  of  the  voice  ;  the 
third,  the  same,  but  with  the  voice  rising, 
as  if  in  despair  of  a  conclusion,  into  a 
plaintively  nasal  whine  ;  the  fourth,  widh, 
ending  in  the  aspirate  of  a  sigh  ;  and 
then,  fifth,  came  a  short,  sharp  wal,  show- 
ing that  a  conclusion  had  been  reached. 
I  have  used  this  latter  form  in  the  "  Biglow 
Papers,"  because,  if  enough  nasality  be 
added,  it  represents  most  nearly  the  aver- 
age sound  of  what  I  may  call  the  interjec- 
tion. 

A  locution  prevails  in  the  Southern  and 
Middle  States  which  is  so  curious  that, 
though  never  heard  in  New  England,  I 
will  give  a  few  lines  to  its  discussion,  the 
more  readily  because  it  is  extinct  else- 
where. I  mean  the  use  of  allow  in  the 
sense  of  affirm,  as  "I  allow  that 's  a  good 
horse."  I  find  the  word  so  used  in 
1558  by  Anthony  Jenkinson  in  Hakluyt  : 
"Corne  they  sowe  not,  neither  doe  eate 
any  bread,  mocking  the  Christians  for 
the  same,  and  disabling  our  strengthe,  say- 
ing we  live  by  eating  the  toppe  of  a  weede, 
and  drinke  a  drink e  made  of  the  same, 
allowing  theyr  great  devouring  of  flesh 
and  drinking  of  milke  to  be  the  increase 
of  theyr  strength."  That  is,  they  under- 
valued our  strength,  and  affirmed  their 
own  to  be  the  result  of  a  certain  diet.  In 
another  passage  of  the  same  narrative 
the  word  has  its  more  common  meaning 


222 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


of  approving  or  praising  :  "The  said  king, 
much  allowing  this  declaration,  said." 
Dueange  quotes  Bracton  sub  voce  adlo- 
CARE  for  the  meaning  "to  admit  as 
proved,"  and  the  transition  from  this  to 
"affirm"  is  by  no  means  violent.  At  the 
same  time,  when  we  consider  some  of  the 
meanings  of  alloiv  in  old  English,  and  of 
allouer  in  old  French,  and  also  remember 
that  the  verbs  prize  and  praise  are  from 
one  root,  I  think  we  must  admit  allau- 
dare  to  a  share  in  the  paternity  of  alloio. 
The  sentence  from  Hakluyt  would  read 
equally  well,  "contemning  our  strengthe, 
.  .  .  .  and  praising  (or  valuing)  their  great 
eating  of  flesh  as  the  cause  of  their  increase 
in  strength."  After  all,  if  we  confine  our- 
selves to  allocare,  it  may  turn  out  that 
the  word  was  somewhere  and  somewhen 
used  for  to  bet,  analogously  to  put  up,  put 
down,  post  (cf.  Spanish  apostar),  and  the 
like.  I  hear  boys  in  the  street  continually 
saying,  "I  bet  that's  a  good  horse,"  or 
what  not,  meaning  by  no  means  to  risk 
anything  beyond  their  opinion  in  the 
matter. 

The  word  improve,  in  the  sense  of  "  to 
occupy,  make  use  of,  employ,"  as  Dr. 
Pickering  defines  it,  he  long  ago  proved 
to  be  no  neologism.  He  would  have  done 
better,  I  think,  had  he  substituted  profit 
by  for  employ.  He  cites  Dr.  Franklin  as 
saying  that  the  word  had  never,  so  far  as 
he  knew,  been  used  in  New  England 
before  he  left  it  in  1723,  except  in 
Dr.  Mather's  "  Remarkable  Providences," 
which  he  oddly  calls  a  "very  old  book." 
Franklin,  as  Dr.  Pickering  goes  on  to 
show,  was  mistaken.  Mr.  Bartlett  in  his 
"  Dictionary  "  merely  abridges  Pickering. 
Both  of  them  should  have  confined  the 
application  of  the  word  to  material  things, 
its  extension  to  which  is  all  that  is  peculiar 
in  the  supposed  American  use  of  it.  For 
surely  "Complete  Letter- Wri ters "  have 
been  "improving  this  opportunity"  time 
out  of  mind.  I  will  illustrate  the  word  a 
little  further,  because  Pickering  cites  no 
English  authorities.  Skelton  has  a  pas- 
sage in  his  "  Phyllyp  Sparowe,"  which  I 
quote  the  rather  as  it  contains  also  the 
word  allowed,  and  as  it  distinguishes  im- 
prove from  employ  :  — 

"  His  [Chaucer's]  Englysh  well  alowed, 

So  as  it  is  enproived, 
For  as  it  is  enployd, 
There  is  no  English  voyd." 

Here  the  meaning  is  to  profit  by.  In 
Fuller's  "Holy  Warre"  (1647),  we  have 
"The  Egyptians  standing  on  the  firm 
ground,  were  thereby  enabled  to  improve 
and  enforce  their  darts  to  the  utmost." 


Here  the  word  might  certainly  mean  to 
make  use  of.  Mrs.  Hutchinson  (Life  of 
Colonel  H. )  uses  the  word  in  the  same 
way  :  "  And  therefore  did  not  emproove  his 
interest  to  engage  the  country  in  the 
quarrell."  Swift  in  one  of  his  letters  says  : 
"  There  is  not  an  acre  of  land  in  Ireland 
turned  to  half  its  advantage  ;  yet  it  is 
better  improved  than  the  people."  I  find 
it  also  in,  "Strength  out  of  Weakness" 
(1652),  and  Plutarch's  "Morals"  (1714), 
but  I  know  of  only  one  example  of  its 
use  in  the  purely  American  sense,  and  that 
is,  "  a  very  good  improvement  for  a  mill " 
in  the  "State  Trials"  (Speech  of  the 
Attorney-General  in  the  Lady  Ivy's  case, 
1684).  In  the  sense  of  employ,  I  could 
cite  a  dozen  old  English  authorities. 

In  running  over  the  fly-leaves  of  those 
delightful  folios  for  this  reference,  I  find 
a  note  which  reminds  me  of  another  word, 
for  our  abuse  of  which  we  have  been  de- 
servedly ridiculed.  I  mean  lady.  It  is 
true  I  might  cite  the  example  of  the  Italian 
donna*  (domina),  which  has  been  treated 
in  the  same  way  by  a  whole  nation,  and 
not,  as  lady  among  us,  by  the  uncultivated 
only.  It  perhaps  grew  into  use  in  the 
half-democratic  republics  of  Italy  in  the 
same  way  and  for  the  same  reasons  as  with 
us.  But  I  admit  that  our  abuse  of  the 
word  is  villanous.  I  know  of  an  orator  who 
once  said  in  a  public  meeting  where  bon- 
nets preponderated,  that  "  the  ladies  were 
last  at  the  cross  and  first  at  the  tomb  "  ! 
But  similar  sins  were  committed  before  our 
day  and  in  the  mother  country.  In  the 
"  State  Trials  "  I  learn  of  "  a  gentleiooman 
that  lives  cook  with  "  such  a  one,  and  I 
hear  the  Lord  High  Steward  speaking  of 
the  wife  of  a  waiter  at  a  bagnio  as  a  gentle- 
woman !  From  the  same  authority,  by 
the  way,  I  can  state  that  our  vile  habit  of 
chewing  tobacco  had  the  somewhat  un- 
savory example  of  Titus  Oates,  and  I 
know  by  tradition  from  an  eyewitness 
that  the  elegant  General  Burgoyne  partook 
of  the  same  vice.  Howell,  in  one  of  his 
letters  (dated  26  August,  1623,)  speaks 
thus  of  another  "  institution  "  which  many 
have  thought  American  :  "  They  speak 
much  of  that  boisterous  Bishop  of  Halver- 
stadt  (for  so  they  term  him  here),  that, 
having  taken  a  place  wher  ther  were  two 
Monasteries  of  Nuns  and  Friers,  he  caus'd 
divers  feather-beds  to  be  rip'd,  and  all  the 
feathers  to  be  thrown  in  a  great  Hall, 
whither  the  Nuns  and  Friers  were  thrust 
naked  with  their  bodies  oil'd  and  pitch'd, 
and  to  tumble  among  the  feathers. "  How- 

*  Dame,  in  English,  is  a  decayed  gentle- 
I  woman  of  the  same  family. 


INTRODUCTION. 


223 


ell  speaks  as  if  the  thing  were  new  to  him, 
and  I  know  not  if  the  "  boisterous  "  Bishop 
was  the  inventor  of  it,  but  I  find  it  prac- 
tised in  England  before  our  Revolution. 

Before  leaving  the  subject,  I  will  add  a 
few  comments  made  from  time  to  time 
on  the  margin  of  Mr.  Bartlett's  excellent 
"Dictionary,"  to  which  I  am  glad  thus 
publicly  to  acknowledge  my  many  obliga- 
tions. "  Avails  "  is  good  old  English,  and 
the  vails  of  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds's  porter 
are  famous.  Averse  from,  averse  to,  and 
in  connection  with  them  the  English  vul- 
garism "different  to."  The  corrupt  use 
of  to  in  these  cases,  as  well  as  in  the  Yan- 
kee "he  lives  to  Salem,"  "to  home,"  and 
others,  must  be  a  very  old  one,  for  in  the 
one  case  it  plainly  arose  from  confounding 
the  two  French  prepositions  a  (from  Latin 
ad  and  ab),  and  in  the  other  from  trans- 
lating the  first  of  them.  I  once  thought 
"different  to"  a  modern  vulgarism,  and 
Mr.  Thackeray,  on  my  pointing  it  out  to 
him  in  "  Henry  Esmond,"  confessed  it  to 
be  an  anachronism.  Mr.  Bartlett  refers 
to  "  the  old  writers  quoted  in  Richardson's 
Dictionary''  for  "different  to,"  though  in 
my  edition  of  that  work  all  the  examples 
are  with  from.  But  I  find  to  used  invaria- 
bly by  Sir  R.  Hawkins  in  Hakluyt.  Banjo 
is  a  negro  corruption  of  0.  E.  bandore. 
Bind-weed  can  hardly  be  modern,  for 
wood-bind  is  old  and  radically  right,  inter- 
twining itself  through  bindan  and  windan 
with  classic  stems.  Bobolink:  is  this  a 
contraction  for  Bob  o'  Lincoln  ?  I  find 
bobolynes,  in  one  of  the  poems  attributed 
to  Skelton,  where  it  may  be  rendered 
giddy-pate,  a  term  very  fit  for  the  bird  in 
his  ecstasies.  Cruel  for  great  is  in  Hak- 
luyt. Bowling-alley  is  in  Nash's  "  Pierce 
Pennilesse."  Curious,  meaning  nice,  oc- 
curs continually  in  old  writers,  and  is  as 
old  as  Pecock's  "Repressor."  Droger 
is  0.  E.  drugger.  Educational  is  in 
Burke.  Feeze  is  only  a  form  of  fizz.  To 
fix,  in  the  American  sense,  I  find  used  by 
the  Commissioners  of  the  United  Colonies 
so  early  as  1675,  "their  arms  well  fixed 
and  fit  for  service. "  To  take  the  foot  in 
the  hand  is  German  ;  so  is  to  go  under. 
Gundalow  is  old  :  I  find  gundelo  in  Hak- 
luyt, and  gundello  in  Booth's  reprint  of  the 
folio  Shakespeare  of  1623.  Gonoff Is  0.  E. 
gnoffe.  Heap  is  in  "Piers  Ploughman" 
( "and  other  names  an  heep  "),  and  in  Hak- 
luyt ("  seeing  such  aheap  of  their  enemies 
ready  to  devour  them").  To  liquor  is 
in  the  "  Puritan  "  ("  call  'em  in,  and  liquor 
'em  a  little  ").  To  loaf:  this,  I  think,  is 
unquestionably  German.  Laufen  is  pro- 
nounced lofen  in  some  parts  of  Germany, 
and  I  once  heard  one  German  student  say 


to  another,  Ich  lauf  (lofe)  hier  bis  du 
wiederkehrest,  and  he  began  accordingly 
to  saunter  up  and  down,  in  short,  to  loaf. 
To  mull,  Mr.  Bartlett  says,  means  "to 
soften,  to  dispirit,"  and  quotes  from  "Mar- 
garet,"—  "There  has  been  a  pretty  consid- 
erable mullin  going  on  among  the  doc- 
tors," —  where  it  surely  cannot  mean  what 
he  says  it  does.  We  have  always  heard 
mulling  used  for  stirring,  bustling,  some- 
times in  an  underhand  way.  It  is  a  meta- 
phor derived  probably  from  mulling  wine, 
and  the  word  itself  must  be  a  corruption 
of  mell,  from  0.  F.  mesler.  Pair  of  stairs 
is  in  Hakluyt.  To  pull  up  stakes  is  in 
Curwen's  Journal,  and  therefore  pre-Rev- 
olutionary.  I  think  I  have  met  with  it 
earlier.  Raise :  under  this  word  Mr. 
Bartlett  omits  "to  raise  a  house,"  that  is, 
the  frame  of  a  wooden  one,  and  also  the 
substantive  formed  from  it,  a  raisin' .  lie- 
tire  for  go  to  bed  is  in  Fielding's  "Amelia." 
Setting-poles  cannot  be  neAv,  for  I  find 
"some  set  [the  boats]  with  long  poles" 
in  Hakluyt.  Shoulder-hitters:  I  find  that 
shoulder- striker  is  old,  though  I  have  lost 
the  reference  to  my  authority.  Snag  is 
no  new  word,  though  perhaps  the  Western 
application  of  it  is  so  ;  but  I  find  in 
Gill  the  proverb,  "  A  bird  in  the  bag  is 
worth  two  on  the  snag."  Dryden  has 
swop  and  to  rights.  Trail :  Hakluyt 
has  "many  wayes  traled  by  the  wilde 
beastes." 

I  subjoin  a  few  phrases  not  in  Mr.  Bart- 
lett's book  which  I  have  heard.  Bald- 
headed:  "  to  go  it  bald-headed  "  ;  in  great 
haste,  as  where  one  rushes  out  without  his 
hat.  Bogue  :  "  I  don't  git  much  done 
'thout  I  bogue  right  in  along  'th  my  men." 
Carry :  a  portage.  Cat-nap  :  a  short  doze. 
Cat-stick :  a  small  stick.  Chowder-head  : 
a  muddle-brain.  Cling-john  :  a  soft  cake 
of  rye.  Cocoa-nut :  the  head.  Cohees  : 
applied  to  the  people  of  certain  settle- 
ments in  Western  Pennsylvania,  from  their 
use  of  the  archaic  form  Quo'  he.  Dun- 
now 'z  I  know :  the  nearest  your  true 
Yankee  ever  comes  to  acknowledging  igno- 
rance. Essence -pedler  :  a  skunk.  First- 
rate  and  a  half.  Fish-fakes,  for  drying 
fish  :  O.  E.  fleck  (cratis).  Gander-party : 
a  social  gathering  of  men  only.  Gawni- 
cus :  a  dolt.  Hawkins's  whetstone  :  rum  ; 
in  derision  of  one  Hawkins,  a  well-known 
temperance-lecturer.  Hyper  :  to  bustle  : 
"  I  mus'  hyper  about  an'  git  tea."  Keeler- 
tub :  one  in  which  dishes  are  washed. 
("And  Greasy  Joan  doth  keel  the  pot.") 
Lap-tea :  where  the  guests  are  too  many  to 
sit  at  table.  Last  of  pea-time :  to  be  hard- 
up.  Lose-laid  (loose-laid)  :  a  weaver's 
term,  and  probably  English ;  weak-willed. 


224 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


Mal'ihacJ: :  to  cat  Tip  hastily  or  awk- 
warlly.  Moon-glade:  a  beautiful  word: 
for  tbe  track  of  moonlight  on  the  water. 
Off-ox :  an  unmanageable,  cross-grained 
fellow.  Old  Driver'  Old  Splitfoot  ;  the 
Divil.  Onhitch  :  to  pull  trigger  (cf.  Span- 
ish disparar).  Popular :  conceited.  Rote: 
sound  of  surf  before  a  storm.  Rot- gut : 
cheap  whiskey  ;  the  word  occurs  in  Hey- 
wool's  "  English  Traveller  "  and  Addison's 
1 '  Drummer,"  for  a  poor  kind  of  drink. 
Seem :  it  is  habitual  with  the  New-Eng- 
lander  to  put  this  verb  to  strange  uses,  as, 
"  1  can't  seem  to  be  suited,"  "  I  could  n't 
seem  to  know  him."  Sidehill,  for  hilt- 
side.  State-house :  this  seems  an  Ameri- 
canism, whether  invented  or  derived  from 
the  Dutch  Stadhvys,  I  know  not.  Strike 
and  string  :  from  the  game  of  ninepins  ; 
to  make  a  strike  is  to  knock  down  all  the 
pins  with  one  ball,  hence  it  has  come  to 
me  .in  fortunate,  successful.  Swampers  : 
men  who  break  out  roads  for  lumberers. 
Tormented:  euphemism  for  damned,  as, 
"not  a  tormented  cent."  Virginia  fence, 
to  make  a :  to  walk  like  a  drunken  man. 

It  is  always  worth  while  to  note  down 
the  erratic  words  or  phrases  which  one 
meets  with  in  any  dialect.  They  may 
throw  light  on  the  meaning  of  other  words, 
on  the  relationship  of  languages,  or  even  on 
history  itself.  In  so  composite  a  language 
as  ours  they  often  supply  a  different  form 
to  express  a  different  shade  of  meaning, 
as  in  viol  and  fiddle,  thrid  and  thread, 
^mother  and  smoulder,  where  the  I  has  crept 
in  by  a  false  analogy  with  would.  We 
have  given  back  to  England  the  excel- 
lent adjective  lengthy,  formed  honestly  like 
earthy,  drouthy,  and  others,  thus  enabling 
their  journalists  to  characterize  our  Presi- 
dent's messages  by  a  word  civilly  compro- 
mising between  long  and  tedious,  so  as  not 
to  endanger  the  peace  of  the  two  countries 
by  wounding  our  national  sensitiveness  to 
British  criticism.  Let  me  give  two  curious 
examples  of  the  antiseptic  property  of 
dialects  at  which  I  have  already  glanced. 
Dante  has  dindi  as  a  childish  or  low  word 
for  danari  (money),  and  in  Shropshire 
small  Roman  coins  are  still  dug  up  which 
the  peasants  call  dinders.  This  can  hard- 
ly be  a  chance  coincidence,  but  seems 
rather  to  carry  the  word  back  to  the 
Roman  soldiery.  So  our  farmers  say 
chuk,  chuk,  to  their  pigs,  and  ciacco  is 
one  of  the  Italian  words  for  hog.  When 
a  countryman  tells  us  that  he  "  fell  pll  of 
a  heap,"  I  cannot  help  thinking  that  he 
unconsciously  points  to  an  affinity  be- 
tween our  word  tumble,  and  the  Latin 
tum-ubis,  that  is  older  than  most  others. 
I  believe  that  words,  or  even  the  mere 


intonation  of  them,  have  an  astonishing 
vitality  and  power  of  propagation  by  the 
root,  like  the  gardener's  pest,  quitch- 
grass,*  while  the  application  or  combina- 
tion of  them  may  be  new.  It  is  in  these 
last  that  my  countrymen  seem  to  me  full 
of  humor,  invention,  quickness  of  wit,  and 
that  sense  of  subtle  analogy  which  needs 
only  refining  to  become  fancy  and  imagi- 
nation. Prosaic  as  American  life  seems 
in  many  of  its  aspects  to  a  European,  bleak 
and  bare  as  it  is  on  the  side  of  tradition, 
and  utterly  orphaned  of  the  solemn  inspira- 
tion of  antiquity,  I  cannot  help  thinking 
that  the  ordinary  talk  of  unlettered  men 
among  us  is  fuller  of  metaphor  and  of 
phrases  that  suggest  lively  images  than 
that  of  any  other  people  I  have  seen. 
Very  many  such  will  be  found  in  Mr. 
Bartlett's  book,  though  his  short  list  of 
proverbs  at  the  end  seem  to  me.  with  one 
or  two  exceptions,  as  un-American  as  pos- 
sible. Most  of  them  have  no  character  at 
all  but  coarseness,  and  are  quite  too  long- 
skirted  for  working  proverbs,  in  which 
language  always  •'•'takes  off  its  coat  to  it," 
as  a  Yankee  would  say.  There  are  plenty 
that  have  a  more  native  and  puckery 
flavor,  seedlings  from  the  old  stock  often, 
and  yet  new  varieties.  One  hears  such 
not  seldom  among  us  Easterners,  and  the 
West  would  yield  many  more.  "  Mean 
enough  to  steal  acorns  from  a  blind  hog" ; 
"  Cold  as  the  north  side  of  a  Jenooary 
gravestone  by  starlight"  ;  "  Hungry  as  a 
graven  image "  ;  "  Pop'lar  as  a  hen  with 
one  chicken"  ;  "  A  hen's  time  ain't  much"  ; 
"  Quicker  'n  greased  lightnin' "  ;  "  Ther 's 
sech  a  thing  ez  betn'  tu"  (our  Yankee  par- 
aphrase of  /xTjSe  aya.v) ;  hence  the  phrase 
VotmC  round,  meaning  a  supererogatory 
activity  like  that  of  flies  ;  "  Stingy  enough 
to  .-kirn  his  milk  at  both  eends" ;  "Hot  as 
the  Devil's  kitchen  "  ;  "'Handy  as  a  pocket 
in  a  shirt  "  ;  "  He 's  a  whole  team  and  the 
dog  under  the  wagon  "  ;  "  All  deacons  are 
good,  but  there's  odds  in  deacons"  (to  dea- 
con berries  is  to  put  the  largest  atop) ;  "  So 
thievish  they  hev  to  take  in  their  stone 
walls  nights"  ^  may  serve  as  specimens. 
"I  take  my  tea  barfoot,"  said  a  back- 
woodsman when  asked  if  he  would  have 
cream  and  sugar.  (I  find  bo.  r  foot,  by  the 
way,  in  the  Coventry  Plays.)  A  man 
speaking  to  me  once  of  a  very  rocky 
clearing  said,  "Stone's  got  a  pretty  heavy 
mortgage  on  that  land,"  and  T  overheard 

*  Which,  whether  in  that  form,  or  under  its 
aliases  witch-grass  and  cooch-grass,  points  us 
back  to  its  original  Saxon  quick. 

t  And,  by  the  way,  the  Yankee  never  says 
"  o'  nights,"  but  uses  the  older  adverbial  form, 
analogous  to  the  German  na^fUs. 


INTRODUCTION. 


225 


a  guide  in  the  woods  say  to  his  compan- 
ions Avho  were  urging  him  to  sing,  "  Wal, 
I  did  sing  once,  but  toons  gut  invented,  an' 
thet  spilt  my  trade."  Whoever  has  driven 
over  a  stream  by  a  bridge  made  of  slabs 
will  feel  the  picturesque  force  of  the  epi- 
thet slab-bridged  applied  to  a  fellow  of 
shaky  character.  Almost  every  county 
has  some  good  die-sinker  in  phrase,  whose 
mintage  passes  into  the  currency  of  the 
whole  neighborhood.  Such  a  one  described 
the  county  jail  (the  one  stone  building 
where  all  the  dwellings  are  of  wood)  as 
"  the  house  whose  underpinnin'  come  up 
to  the  eaves,"  and  called  hell  "  the  place 
where  they  didn't  rake  up  their  lires 
nights."  I  once  asked  a  stage-driver  if 
the  other  side  of  a  hill  were  as  steep  as 
the  one  we  were  climbing  :  "  Steep  ?  chain 
lightnin'  could  n'  go  down  it  'thout  puttin' 
the  shoe. on!"  And  this  brings  me  back 
to  the  exaggeration  of  which  I  spoke  be- 
fore. To  me  there  is  something  very  tak- 
ing in  the  negro  "so  black  that  charcoal 
made  a  chalk-mark  on  him,"  and  the 
wooden  shingle  "painted  so  like  marble 
that  it  sank  in  water,"  as  if  its  very  con- 
sciousness or  its  vanity  had  been  over- 
persuaded  by  the  cunning  of  the  painter. 
I  heard  a  man,  in  order  to  give  a  notion 
of  some  very  cold  weather,  say  to  another 
that  a  certain  Joe,  who  had  been  taking 
mercury,  found  a  lump  of  quicksilver  in 
each  boot,  when  he  went  home  to  dinner. 
This  power  of  rapidly  dramatizing  a  dry 
fact  into  flesh  and  b'ood,  and  the  vivid 
conception  of  Joe  as  a  human  thermom- 
eter, strike  me  as  showing  a  poetic  sense 
that  may  be  refined  into  faculty.  At 
any  rate  there  is  humor  here,  and  not 
mere  quickness  of  wit,  —  the  deeper  and 
not  the  shallower  quality.  The  tendency 
of  humor  is  always  towards  overplus  of 
expression,  while  the  very  essence  of  wit 
is  its  logical  precision.  Captain  Basil 
Hall  denied  that  our  people  had  any 
humor,  deceived,  perhaps,  by  their  gravity 
of  manner.  But  this  very  seriousness  is 
often  the  outward  sign  of  that  humorous 
quality  of  the  mind  which  delights  in 
finding  an  element  of  identity"  in  things 
seemingly  the  most  incongruous,  and  then 
again  in  forcing  an  incongruity  upon  things 
identical.  Perhaps  Captain  Hall  had  no 
humor  himself,  and  if  so  he  would  never 
find  it.  Bid  he  always  feel  the  point  of 
what  was  said  to  himself?  I  doubt  it, 
because  I  happen  to  know  a  chance  he 
once  had  given  him  in  vain.  The  Captain 
was  walking  up  and  down  the  veranda  of 
a  country  tavern  in  Massachusetts  while 
the  coach  changed  horses.  A  thunder- 
storm was  going  on,  and,  with  that  pleas- 
16 


ant  European  air  of  indirect  self-compli- 
ment in  condescending  to  be  surprised  by 
American  merit,  which  we  find  so  concili- 
ating, he  said  to  a  countryman  lounging 
against  the  door,  "  Pretty  heavy  thunder 
you  have  here."  The  other,  who  had  di- 
vined at  a  glance  his  feeling  of  generous 
concession  to  a  new  country,  drawled 
gravely,  "Waal,  we  du,  considerin'  the 
number  of  inhabitants."  This,  the  more 
I  analyze  it,  the  more  humorous  does  it 
seem.  The  same  man  was  capable  of  wit 
also,  when  he  would.  He  was  a  cabinet- 
maker, and  was  once  employed  to  make 
some  commandment-tables  for  the  parish 
meeting-house.  The  parson,  a  very  old 
man,  annoyed  him  by  looking  into  his 
workshop  every  morning,  and  cautioning 
him  to  be  very  sure  to  pick  out  "  clear 
mahogany  without  any  knots  in  it."  At 
last,  wearied  out,  he  retorted  one  day  : 
"  Wal,  Dr.  B.,  I  guess  ef  I  was  to  leave 
the  nots  out  o'  some  o'  the  c'man'ments, 
't  'ould  soot  you  full  ez  wal !  " 

If  I  had  taken  the  pains  to  write  down 
the  proverbial  or  pithy  phrases  I  have 
heard,  or  if  I  had  sooner  thought  of  noting 
the  Yankeeisms  I  met  with  in  my  reading, 
I  might  have  been  able  to  do  more  justice 
to  my  theme.  But  I  have  done  all  I 
wished  in  respect  to  pronunciation,  if  I 
have  proved  that  where  we  are  vulgar,  we 
have  the  countenance  of  very  good  com- 
pany. For,  as  to  the^s  et  norma  loquen- 
di,  I  agree  with  Horace  and  those  who 
have  paraphrased  or  commented  him,  from 
Boileau  to  Gray.  I  think  that  a  good  rule 
for  style  is  Galiani's  definition  of  sublime 
oratory,  —  "l'art  de  tout  dire  sans  etre 
mis  a  la  Bastille  dans  un  pays  ou  il  est 
defendu  de  rien  dire."  I  profess  myself 
a  fanatical  purist,  but  with  a  hearty  con- 
tempt for  the  speech -gilders  who  affect 
purism  without  any  thorough,  or  even 
pedagogic,  knowledge  of  the  engendure, 
growth,  and  affinities  of  the  noble  lan- 
guage about  whose  mesalliances  they  pro- 
fess (like  Dean  Alford^  to  be  so  solicitous. 
If  they  had  their  way —  !  "  Doch  es  sey," 
says  Lessing,  "  dass  jene  gothische  Hof- 
lichkeit  eine  unentbehrliche  Tugend  des 
heutigen  Umganges  ist.  Soil  sie  darum 
unsere  Schriften  eben  so  schaal  und  falsch 
machen  als  unsern  Umgang  '{ "  And  Dray- 
ton was  not  far  wrong  in  affirming  that 

"  'T  is  possible  to  climb, 
To  kindle,  or  to  slake, 
Although  in  Skelton's  rhyme.'* 

Cumberland  in  his  Memoirs  tells  us  that 
when,  in  the  midst  of  Admiral  Rodney's 
great  sea-fight,  Sir  Charles  Douglas  said 


226 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


to  him,  "  Behold,  Sir  George,  the  Greeks 
and  Trojans  contending  for  the  body  of 
Patroclus  ! "  the  Admiral  answered,  pee- 
vishly, "Damn  the  Greeks  and  damn  the 
Trojans  !  I  have  other  things  to  think  of." 
After  the  battle  was  won,  Rodney  thus 
to  Sir  Charles,  "  Now,  my  dear  friend,  I 
am  at  the  service  of  your  Greeks  and 
Trojans,  and  the  whole  of  Homer's  Iliad, 
or  as  much  of  it  as  you  please  ! "  I  had 
some  such  feeling  of  the  impertinence  of 
our  pseudo-classicality  when  I  chose  our 
homely  dialect  to  work  in.  Should  we  be 
nothing,  because  somebody  had  contrived 
to  be  something  (and  that  perhaps  in  a 
provincial  dialect)  ages  ago  ?  and  to  be 
nothing  by  our  very  attempt  to  be  that 
something,  which  they  had  already  been, 
and  which  therefore  nobody  could  be  again 
without  being  a  bore  ?  Is  there  no  way 
left,  then,  I  thought,  of  being  natural,  of 
being  na'if,  which  means  nothing  more 
than"  native,  of  belonging  to  the  age  and 
country  in  which  you  are  born  ?  The 
Yankee,  at  least,  is  a  new  phenomenon  ; 
let  us  try  to  be  that.  It  is  perhaps  a  pis 
oiler,  but  is  not  No  Thoroughfare  written 
up  everywhere  else  ?  In  the  literary 
world,  things  seemed  to  me  very  much  as 
they  were  in  the  latter  half  of  the  last 
century.  Pope,  skimming  the  cream  of 
good  sense  and  expression  wherever  he 
could  find  it,  had  made,  not  exactly 
poetry,  but  an  honest,  salable  butter  of 
worldly  wisdom  which  pleasantly  lubri- 
cated some  of  the  drier  morsels  of  life's 
daily  bread,  and,  seeing  this,  scores  of 
harmlessly  insane  people  went  on  for  the 
next  fifty  years  coaxing  his  buttermilk 
with  the  regular  up  and  down  of  the  pen- 
tameter churn.  And  in  our  day  do  we 
not  scent  everywhere,  and  even  carry 
away  in  our  clothes  against  our  will,  that 
faint  perfume  of  musk  which  Mr.  Tenny- 
son has  left  behind  him,  or  worse,  of 
Heine's  pachouli  ?  And  might  it  not  be 
possible  to  escape  them  by  turning  into 
one  of  our  narrow  New  England  lanes, 
shut  in  though  it  were  by  bleak  stone- 
walls on  either  hand,  and  where  no  better 
flowers  were  to  be  gathered  than  golden- 
rod  and  hardhack  ? 

Beside  the  advantage  of  getting  out  of 
the  beaten  track,  our  dialect  offered  others 
hardly  inferior.  As  I  was  about  to  make 
an  endeavor  to  state  them,  I  remembered 
something  which  the  clear-sighted  Goethe 
had  said  about  Hebel's  Allemannische 
Gedichte,  which,  making  proper  deduction 
for  special  reference  to  the  book  under 
review,  expresses  what  I  would  have  said 
far  better  than  I  could  hope  to  do :  14  Allen 
diesen  innern  guten  Eigenschaften  kommt 


'  die  behagliche  naive  Sprache  sehr  zu  stat- 
I  ten.    Man  findet  mehrere  sinnlich  bedeu- 
I  tende  und  wohlklingende  Worte  ....  von 
|  einem,  zwei  Buchstaben,  Abbreviationen, 
!  Contractionen,  viele  kurze,  leichte  Sylben, 
|  neue  Reime,  welches,  mehr  als  man  glaubt, 
ein  Vortheil  fur  den  Dichter  ist.  Diese 
Elemente  werden  durch  gluckliche  Con- 
struetionen  und  lebhafte  Formen  zu  einem 
Styl  zusammengedrangt  der  zu  diesem 
Zwecke  vor  unserer  Biichersprache  grosse 
Vorzugehat."    Of  course  I  do  not  mean 
to  imply  that  /  have  come  near  achieving 
any  such  success  as  the  great  critic  here  in- 
dicates, but  I  think  the  success  is  there,  and 
to  be  plucked  by  some  more  fortunate  hand. 

Nevertheless,  I  was  encouraged  by  the 
approval  of  many  whose  opinions  I  valued. 
With  a  feeling  too  tender  and  grateful  to 
be  mixed  with  any  vanity,  I  mention  as 
one  of  these  the  late  A.  H.  Clough,  who 
more  than  any  one  of  those  I  have  known 
(no  longer  living),  except  Hawthorne,  im- 
pressed me  with  the  constant  presence 
of  that  indefinable  thing  we  call  genius. 
He  often  suggested  that  I  should  try  my 
hand  at  some  Yankee  Pastorals,  which 
would  admit  of  more  sentiment  and  a 
higher  tone  without  foregoing  the  advan- 
tage offered  by  the  dialect.  I  have  never 
completed  anything  of  the  kind,  but,  in 
this  Second  Series,  both  my  remembrance 
of  his  counsel  and  the  deeper  feeling 
called  up  by  the  great  interests  at  stake, 
led  me  to  venture  some  passages  nearer 
to  what  is  called  poetical  than  could  have 
been  admitted  without  incongruity  into 
the  former  series.  The  time  seemed  call- 
ing to  me,  with  the  old  poet,  — 

"  Leave,  then,  your  wonted  prattle 
The  oaten  reed  forbear  ; 
For  I  hear  a  sound  of  battle, 
And  trumpets  rend  the  air  !  " 

The  only  attempt  I  had  ever  made  at 
anything  like  a  pastoral  (if  that  may  be 
called  an  attempt  which  was  the  result 
almost  of  pure  accident)  was  in  "The 
Courtin'."  While  the  introduction  to  the 
First  Series  was  going  through  the  press, 
I  received  word  from  the  printer  that 
there  was  a  blank  page  left  which  must  be 
filled.  I  sat  down  at  once  and  improvised 
another  fictitious  "notice  of  the  press," 
in  which,  because  verse  would  fill  up 
space  more  cheaply  than  prose,  I  inserted 
an  extract  from  a  supposed  ballad  of  Mr. 
Biglow.  I  kept  no  copy  of  it,  and  the 
printer,  as  directed,  cut  it  off  when  the 
gap  was  filled.  Presently  I  began  to  re- 
ceive letters  asking  for  the  rest  of  it, 
sometimes  for  the  balance  of  it.    I  had 


INTRODUCTION. 


227 


none,  but  to  answer  such  demands,  I 
patched  a  conclusion  upon  it  in  a  later 
edition.  Those  who  had  only  the  first 
continued  to  importune  me.  Afterward, 
"being  asked  to  write  it  out  as  an  auto- 
graph for  the  Baltimore  Sanitary  Commis- 
sion Fair,  I  added  other  verses,  into  some 
of  which  I  infused  a  little  more  sentiment 
in  a  homely  way,  and  after  a  fashion  com- 
pleted it  by  sketching  in  the  characters 
and  making  a  connected  story.  Most 
likely  I  have  spoiled  it,  but  I  shall  put  it 
at  the  end  of  this  Introduction,  to  answer 
once  for  all  those  kindly  importunings. 

As  I  have  seen  extracts  from  what  pur- 
ported to  be  writings  of  Mr.  Biglow, 
which  were  not  genuine,  I  may  properly 
take  this  opportunity  to  say,  that  the  two 
vqlumes  now  published  contain  every  line 
I  /  ever  printed  under  that  pseudonyme, 
and  that  I  have  never,  so  far  as  I  can  re- 
member, written  an  anonymous  article 
(elsewhere  than  in  the  North  American 
Review  and  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  during 
my  editorship  of  it)  except  a  review  of 
Mrs.  Stowe's  "  Minister's  Wooing,"  and, 
some  twenty  years  ago,  a  sketch  of  the 
antislavery  movement  in  America  for  an 
English  journal. 

A  word  more  on  pronunciation.  I  have 
endeavored  to  express  this  so  far  as  I 
could  by  the  types,  taking  such  pains  as, 
I  fear,  may  sometimes  make  the  reading 
harder  than  need  be.  At  the  same  time, 
by  studying  uniformity  I  have  sometimes 
been  obliged  to  sacrifice  minute  exact- 
ness. The  emphasis  often  modifies  the 
habitual  sound.  For  example,  for  is  com- 
monly fer  (a  shorter  sound  than  fur  for 
far),  but  when  emphatic  it  always  be- 
comes for,  as  "wut/or/"  So  too  is  pro- 
nounced like  to  (as  it  was  anciently  spelt), 
and  to  like  ta  (the  sound  as  in  the  tou  of 
touch),  but  too,  when  emphatic,  changes 
into  tue,  and  to,  sometimes,  in  similar 
cases,  into  toe,  as,  "I  did  n'  hardly  know 
wut  toe  du  ! " .  Where  vowels  come  to- 
gether, or  one  precedes  another  following 
an  aspirate,  the  two  melt  together,  as  was 
common  with  the  older  poets  who  formed 
their  versification  on  French  or  Italian 
models.  Drayton  is  thoroughly  Yankee 
when  he  says  "I  'xpect,"  and  Pope  when 
he  says  "  t'  inspire."  With  becomes  some- 
times 'ith,  'uth,  or  'th,  or  even  disappears 
wholly  where  it  comes  before  the,  as,  "I 
went  along  th'  Square"  (along  with  the 
Squire),  the  are  sound  being  an  archaism 
which  I  have  noticed  also  in  choir,  like 
the  old  Scottish  quhair.  ( Herri ck  has, 
"Of  flowers  ne'er  sucked  by  th'  theeving 
bee.")  Without  becomes  athoitt  and  'thout. 
Afterwards  always  retains  its  locative  s, 


and  is  pronounced  always  ahterwurds', 
with  a  strong  accent  on  the  last  syllable. 
This  oddity  has  some  support  in  the 
erratic  toivards'  instead  of  to' wards,  which 
we  find  in  the  poets  and  sometimes  hear. 
The  sound  given  to  the  first  syllable  of 
to' wards,  I  may  remark,  sustains  the  Yan- 
kee lengthening  of  the  o  in  to.  At  the 
beginning  of  a  sentence,  ahtemvurds  has 
the  accent  on  the  first  syllable  ;  at  the 
end  of  one,  on  the  last ;  as,  "  ah'terwurds' 
he  tol'  me,"  "he  tol'  me  ahterivurds'.' 
The  Yankee  never  makes  a  mistake  in 
his  aspirates.  U  changes  in  many  words 
to  e,  always  in  such,  bi*ush,  tush,  hush, 
rush,  blush,  seldom  in  much,  oftener  in 
trust  and  crust,  never  in  mush,  gust,  bust, 
tumble,  or  (?)  flush,  in  the  latter  case 
probably  to  avoid  confusion  with  flesh.  I 
have  heard  flush  with  the  e  sound,  how- 
ever. For  the  same  reason,  I  suspect, 
never  in  gush  (at  least,  I  never  heard  it), 
because  we  have  already  one  gesh  for  gash. 
A  and  i  short  frequently  become  e  short. 
U  always  becomes  o  in  the  prefix  un  (ex- 
cept unto),  and  o  in  return  changes  to  u 
short  in  uv  for  of,  and  in  some  words  be- 
ginning with  om.  T  and  cl,  b  and  p,  v  and 
w,  remain  intact.  So  much  occurs  to  me 
in  addition  to  what  I  said  on  this  head  in 
the  preface  to  the  former  volume. 

Of  course  in  what  I  have  said  I  wish  to 
be  understood  as  keeping  in  mind  the  dif- 
ference between  provincialisms  properly 
so  called  and  slang.  Slang  is  always  vul- 
gar, because  it  is  not  a  natural  but  an 
affected  way  of  talking,  and  all  mere 
tricks  of  speech  or  writing  are  offensive. 
I  do  not  think  that  Mr.  Biglow  can  be 
fairly  charged  with  vulgarity,  and  I  should 
have  entirely  failed  in  my  design,  if  I  had 
not  made  it  appear  that  high  and  even 
refined  sentiment  may  coexist  with  the 
shrewder  and  more  comic  elements  of  the 
Yankee  character.  I  believe  that  what  is 
essentially  vulgar  and  mean-spirited  in 
politics  seldom  has  its  source  in  the  body 
of  the  people,  but  much  rather  among 
those  who  are  made  timid  by  their  wealth 
or  selfish  by  their  love  of  power.  A 
democracy  can  afford  much  better  than 
an  aristocracy  to  follow  out  its  convic- 
tions, and  is  perhaps  better  qualified  to 
build  those  convictions  on  plain  princi- 
ples of  right  and  wrong,  rather  than  on 
the  shifting  sands  of  expediency.  I  had 
always  thought  "Sam  Slick"  a  libel  on 
the  Yankee  character,  and  a  complete 
falsification  of  Yankee  modes  of  speech, 
though,  for  aught  I  know,  it  may  be  true 
in  both  respects  so  far  as  the  British  prov- 
inces are  concerned.  To  me  the  dialect 
was  native,  was  spoken  all  about  me  when 


228  ,  THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


a  hoy,  at  a  time  when  an  Irish  day-laborer 
was  as  rare  as  an  American  one  now. 
Sine*  then  I  have  made  a  study  of  it  so 
far  as  opportunity  allowed.  But  when  I 
write  in  it,  it  is  as  in  a  mother  tongue, 
and  I  am  carried  back  far  beyond  any 
studies  of  it  to  long-ago  noonings  in  my 
father's  hay -fields,  and  to  the  talk  of  Sam 
and  Job  over  their  jug  of  blackstrap  under 
the  shadow  of  the  ash-tree  which  still 
dapples  the  grass  whence  they  have  been 
gone  so  long. 

But  life  is  short,  and  prefaces  should  be. 
And  so,  my  good  friends,  to  whom  this 
introductory  epistle  is  addressed,  farewell. 
Though  some  of  you  have  remonstrated 
with  me,  I  shall  never  write  any  more 
"Biglow  Papers,"  however  great  the 
temptation,  —  great  especially  at  the  pres- 
ent time,  —  unless  it  be  to  complete  the 
original  plan  of  this  Series  by  bringing  out 
Mr.  Sawin  as  an  "original  Union  man." 
The  very  favor  with  which  they  have  been 
received  is  a  hindrance  to  me,  by  forcing 
on  me  a  self-consciousness  from  which  I 
was  entirely  free  when  I  wrote  the  First 
Series.  Moreover,  I  am  no  longer  the 
same  careless  youth,  with  nothing  to  do 
but  live  to  myself,  my  books,  and  my 
friends,  that  I  was  then.  I  always  hated 
politics,  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  word, 
and  I  am  not  likely  to  grow  fonder  of 
them,  now  that  I  have  learned  how  rare  it 
is  to  find  a  man  who  can  keep  principle 
clear  from  party  and  personal  prejudice, 
or  can  conceive  the  possibility  of  another's 
doing  so.  I  feel  as  if  I  could  in  some  sort 
claim  to  be  an  emeritus,  and  I  am  sure 
that  political  satire  will  have  full  justice 
done  it  by  that  genuine  and  delightful 
humorist,  the  Rev.  Petroleum  V.  Nasby. 
1  regret  that  I  killed  off  Mr.  Wilbur  so 
soon,  for  he  would  have  enabled  me  to 
bring  into  this  preface  a  number  of  learned 
({notations,  which  must  now  go  a-begging, 
and  also  enabled  me  to  dispersonalize  my- 
self into  a  vicarious  egotism.  He  would 
have  helped  me  also  in  clearing  myself 
from  a  charge  which  I  shall  briefly  touch 
on,  because  my  friend  Mr.  Hughes  has 
found  it  needful  to  defend  me  in  his  pref- 
ace to  one  of  the  English  editions  of  the 
"Biglow  Papers."  I  thank  Mr.  Hughes 
heartily  for  his  friendly  care  of  my  good 
name,  and  were  his  Preface  accessible  to 
my  readers  here  (as  I  am  glad  it  is  not, 
for  its  partiality  makes  me  blush),  I 
should  leave  the  matter  where  lie  left  it. 
The  charge  is  of  profanity,  brought  in  by 
persons  who  proclaimed  African  slavery 
of  Divine  institution,  and  is  based  (so  far 
as  I  have  heard)  on  two  passages  in  the 
First  Series  — 


"  An'  you 've  gut  to  git  up  airly, 
Ef  you  want  to  take  hi  God," 

and, 

"  God  '11  send  the  bill  to  you," 

and  on  some  Scriptural  illustrations  by 
Mr.  Sawin. 

Now,  in  the  first  place,  I  was  writing 
under  an  assumed  character,  and  must  talk 
as  the  person  would  whose  mouthpiece  I 
made  myself.  Will  any  one  familiar  with 
the  New  England  countryman  venture  to 
tell  me  that  he  does  not  speak  of  sacred 
things  familiarly  ?  that  Biblical  allusions 
(allusions,  that  is,  to  the  single  book  with 
whose  language,  from  his  church-going 
habits,  he  is  intimate)  are  not  frequent  on 
his  lips  ?  If  so,  he  cannot  have  pursued 
his  studies  of  the  character  on  so  many 
long-ago  muster-fields  and  at  so  many  cat- 
tle-shows as  I.  But  I  scorn  any  such  line 
of  defence,  and  will  confess  at  once  that 
one  of  the  things  I  am  proud  of  in  my 
countrymen  is  (I  am  not  speaking  now  of 
such  persons  as  I  have  assumed  Mr.  Sawin 
to  be)  that  they  do  not  put  their  Maker 
away  far  from  them,  or  interpret  the  fear  of 
God  into  being  afraid  of  Him.  The  Tal- 
mudists  had  conceived  a  deep  truth  when 
they  said,  that  "all  things  were  in  the 
power  of  God,  save  the  fear  of  God  "  ;  and 
when  people  stand  in  great  dread  of  an 
invisible  power,  I  suspect  they  mistake 
quite  another  personage  for  the  Deity. 
1  might  justify  myself  for  the  passages 
criticised  by  many  parallel  ones  from 
Scripture,  but  I  need  not.  The  Reverend 
Homer  Wilbur's  note-books  supply  me 
with  three  apposite  quotations.  The  first 
is  from  a  Father  of  the  Roman  Church, 
the  second  from  a  Father  of  the  Anglican, 
and  the  third  from  a  Father  of  Modern 
English  poetry.  The  Puritan  divines 
would  furnish  me  with  many  more  such. 
St.  Bernard  says,  Sapiens  nuinmiilarius  est 
Dcus :  nummum  ficium  non  recipiet ;  "A 
cunning  money-changer  is  God  :  he  will 
take  in  no  base  coin."  Latimer  says, 
"You  shall  perceive  that  God,  by  this 
example,  shaketh  us  by  the  noses  and 
taketh  us  by  the  ears."  Familiar  enough, 
both  of  them,  one  would  say  !  But  I 
should  think  Mr.  Biglow  had  verily  stolen 
the  last  of  the  two  maligned  passages  from 
Dryden's  "  Don  Sebastian,"  where  I  find 

"And  beg  of  Heaven  to  charge  the  bill  on 

me !  ' 
And  there  I  leave  the  matter,  being  will- 
ing to  believe  that  the  Saint,  the  Martyr, 
and  even  the  Poet,  were  as  careful  of 
God's  honor  as  my  critics  are  ever  likely 
to  be. 

J.  R.  L. 


INTRODUCTION. 


229 


THE  COTJRTIN'. 

God  makes  sech  nights,  all  white  an' 
still 

Fur  'z  you  can  look  or  listen, 
Moonshine  an'  snow  on  field  an'  hill, 
All  silence  an'  all  glisten. 

Zekle  crep'  up  quite  unbeknown 
An'  peeked  in  thru'  the  winder, 

An'  there  sot  Huldy  all  alone, 
'ith  no  one  nigh  to  hender. 

A  fireplace  filled  the  room's  one  side 
With  half  a  cord  o'  wood  in — 

There  warn't  no  stoves  (tell  comfort 
/  died) 
To  bake  ye  to  a  puddin'. 

The  wa'nut  logs  shot  sparkles  out 
Towards  the  pootiest,  bless  her, 

An'  leetle  flames  danced  all  about 
The  chiny  on  the  dresser. 

Agin  the  chimbley  crook-necks  hung, 

An'  in  amongst  'em  rusted 
The    ole   queen's-arm    thet  gran'ther 
Young 

Fetched  back  from  Concord  busted. 

The  very  room,  coz  she  was  in, 
Seemed  warm  from  floor  to  ceilin', 

An'  she  looked  full  ez  rosy  agin 
Ez  the  apples  she  was  peelin'. 

'T  was  kin'  o'  kingdom -come  to  look 

On  sech  a  blessed  cretur, 
A  dogrose  blushin'  to  a  brook 

Ain't  modester  nor  sweeter. 

He  was  six  foot  o'  man,  A  i, 
Clear  grit  an'  human  natur' ; 

None  could  n't  quicker  pitch  a  ton 
Nor  dror  a  furrer  straighter. 

He 'd  sparked  it  with  full  twenty  gals, 
Hed  squired  'em,  danced  'em,  druv 
'em, 

Fust  this  one,  an'  then  thet,  by  spells — 
All  is,  he  could  n't  love  'em. 

But  long  o'  her  his  veins  'ould  run 
All  crinkly  like  curled  maple, 


The  side  she  breshed  felt  full  o'  sun 
Ez  a  south  slope  in  Ap'il. 

She  thought  no  v'ice  hed  sech  a  swing 

Ez  hisn  in  the  choir  ; 
My !  when  he  made  Ole  Hunderd  ring, 

She  knowed  the  Lord  was  nigher. 

An'  she 'd  blush  scarlit,  right  in  prayer, 
When  her  new  meetin'-bunnet 

Felt  somehow  thru'  its  crown  a  pair 
0'  blue  eyes  sot  upon  it. 

Thet  night,  I  tell  ye,  she  looked  some! 

She  seemed  to  've  gut  a  new  soul, 
For  she  felt  sartin-sure  he 'd  come, 

Down  to  her  very  shoe-sole. 

She  heered  a  foot,  an'  knowed  it  tu, 

A-raspin'  on  the  scraper,  — 
All  ways  to  once  her  feelins  flew 

Like  sparks  in  burnt-up  paper. 

He  kin'  o'  Titered  on  the  mat, 

Some  doubtfle  o'  the  sekle, 
His  heart  kep'  goin'  pity-pat, 

But  hern  went  pity  Zekle. 

An'  yit  she  gin  her  cheer  a  jerk 
Ez  though  she  wished  him  furder, 

An'  on  her  apples  kep'  to  work, 
Parin'  away  like  murder. 

"  You  want  to  see  my  Pa,  I  s'pose  ?" 
"  Wal  ....  no  ....  I  come  da- 

signin'  "  — 
4 'To  see  my  Ma?     She  's  sprinklin' 

clo'es 

Agin  to-morrer's  i'nin'." 

To  say  why  gals  acts  so  or  so, 
Or  don't,  'ould  be  presumin' ; 

Mebby  to  mean  yes  an'  say  no 
Comes  nateral  to  women. 

He  stood  a  spell  on  one  foot  fust, 
Then  stood  a  spell  on  t'  other, 

An'  on  which  one  he  felt  the  wust 
He  could  n't  ha'  told  ye  nuther. 

Says  he,  "  I  'd  better  call  agin  "  ; 

Says  she,  "  Think  likely,  Mister"  : 
Thet  last  word  pricked  him  like  a  pin, 

An'  ....  Wal,  he  up  an'  kist  her. 


230 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


When  Ma  bimeby  upon  'em  slips, 

Huldy  sot  pale  ez  ashes, 
All  kin'  o'  smily  roun'  the  lips 

An'  teary  roun'  the  lashes. 

For  she  was  jes'  the  quiet  kind 

Whose  naturs  never  vary, 
Like  streams  that  keep  a  summer  mind 

Snowhid  in  Jenooary. 


The  blood  clost  roun'  her  heart  felt  glued 

Too  tight  for  all  expressing 
Tell  mother  see  how  metters  stood, 

An'  gin  'em  both  her  blessin'. 

Then  her  red  come  back  like  the  tide 

Down  to  the  Bay  o'  Fundy, 
An'  all  I  know  is  they  was  cried 

In  rueetin'  come  nex'  Sunday. 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


No.  I. 

BIRDOFREDUM  SAWIN,  ESQ.,  TO 
MR.  HOSEA  BIGLOW. 

LETTER  FROM  THE  REVEREND  HOMER  WIL- 
BUR, Iff.  A.,  ENCLOSING  THE  EPISTLE 
AFORESAID. 

Jaalam,  15th  Nov.,  1861. 
***** 

It  is  not  from  any  idle  wish  to  obtrude 
my  humble  person  with  undue  prominence 
upon  the  publick  view  that  I  resume  my 
pen  upon  the  present  occasion.  J uniores 
ad  labor es.  But  having  been  a  main  in- 
strument in  rescuing  the  talent  of  my  young 
parishioner  from  being  buried  in  the  ground, 
by  giving  it  such  warrant  with  the  world 
as  could  be  derived  from  a  name  already 
widely  known  by  several  printed  discourses 
(all  of  which  I  may  be  permitted  without 
immodesty  to  state  have  been  deemed 
worthy  of  preservation  in  the  Library  of 
Harvard  College  by  my  esteemed  friend 
Mr.  Sibley),  it  seemed  becoming  that  I 
should  not  only  testify  to  the  genuineness 
of  the  following  production,  but  call  atten- 
tion to  it,  the  more  as  Mr.  Biglow  had  so 
long  been  silent  as  to  be  in  danger  of  abso- 
lute oblivion.  I  insinuate  no  claim  to  any 
share  in  the  authorship  (vixea  nostra  voco) 
of  the  works  already  published  by  Mr. 
Biglow,  but  merely  take  to  myself  the 
credit  of  having  fulfilled  toward  them  the 
office  of  taster  (experto  crede),  who,  having 
first  tried,  could  afterward  bear  witness 
(credenzen  it  was  aptly  named  by  the  Ger- 
mans), an  office  always  arduous,  and  some- 
times even  dangerous,  as  in  the  case  of  those 
devoted  persons  who  venture  their  lives  in 
the  deglutition  of  patent  medicines  {dolus 
latet  in  generalibus,  there  is  deceit  in  the 
most  of  them)  and  thereafter  are  wonder- 
fully preserved  long  enough  to  append  their 
signatures  to  testimonials  in  the  diurnal 
and  hebdomadal  prints.  I  say  not  this  as 
covertly  glancing  at  the  authors  of  certain 


manuscripts  which  have  been  submitted  to 
my  literary  judgment  (though  an  epick  in 
twenty-four  books  on  the  "Taking  of  Jer- 
icho "  might,  save  for  the  prudent  fore- 
thought of  Mrs.  Wilbur  in  secreting  the 
same  just  as  I  had  arrived  beneath  the  walls 
and  was  beginning  a  catalogue  of  the  various 
horns  and  their  blowers,  too  ambitiously 
emulous  in  longanimity  of  Homer's  list  of 
ships,  might,  I  say,  have  rendered  frustrate 
any  hope  I  could  entertain  vacare  Musis 
for  the  small  remainder  of  my  days),  but 
only  the  further  to  secure  myself  against 
any  imputation  of  unseemly  forthputting. 
I  will  barely  subjoin,  in  this  connexion, 
that,  whereas  Job  was  left  to  desire,  in  the 
soreness  of  his  heart,  that  his  adversary 
had  written  a  book,  as  perchance  misan- 
thropically  wishing  to  indite  a  review  there- 
of, yet  was  not  Satan  allowed  so  far  to  tempt 
him  as  to  send  Bildad,  Eliphaz,  and  Zophar 
each  with  an  unprinted  work  in  his  wallet 
to  be  submitted  to  his  censure.  But  of  this 
enough.  Were  I  in  need  of  other  excuse, 
I  might  add  that  I  write  by  the  express  de- 
sire of  Mr.  Biglow  himself,  whose  entire 
winter  leisure  is  occupied,  as  he  assures  me, 
in  answering  demands  for  autographs,  a 
labor  exacting  enough  in  itself,  and  egre- 
giously  so  to  him,  who,  being  no  ready  pen- 
man, cannot  sign  so  much  as  his  name  with- 
out strange  contortions  of  the  face  (his  nose, 
even,  being  essential  to  complete  success) 
and  painfully  suppressed  Saint- Vitus-dance 
of  every  muscle  in  his  body.  This,  with 
his  having  been  put  in  the  Commission  of 
the  Peace  by  our  excellent  Governor  (0,  si 
sic  omnes  !)  immediately  on  his  accession 
to  office,  keeps  him  continually  employed. 
Haud  inexpertus  loquor,  having  for  many 
years  written  myself  J.  P.,  and  being  not 
seldom  applied  to  for  specimens  of  my  chi- 
rography,  a  request  to  which  I  have  some- 
times over  weakly  assented,  believing  as  I 
do  that  nothing  written  of  set  purpose  can 
properly  be  called  an  autograph,  but  only 
those  unpremeditated  sallies  and  lively  run- 
nings which  betray  the  fireside  Man  instead 


232 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


of  the  hunted  Notoriety  doubling  on  his 
pursuers.  But  it  is  time  that  I  should  be- 
think me  of  St.  Austin's  prayer,  libera  me  a 
meipsOy  if  I  would  arrive  at  the  matter  in 
hand. 

Moreover,  I  had  yet  another  reason  for 
taking  up  the  pen  myself.  I  am  informed 
that  the  Atlantic  Monthly  is  mainly  in- 
debted for  its  success  to  the  contributions 
and  editorial  supervision  of  Dr.  Holmes, 
whose  excellent  "Annals  of  America"  oc- 
cupy an  honored  place  upon  my  shelves. 
The  journal  itself  I  have  never  seen  ;  but  if 
this  be  so,  it  might  seem  that  the  recommen- 
dation of  a  brother- clergyman  (though par 
inagis  quam  similis)  should  carry  a  greater 
weight.  I  suppose  that  you  have  a  de- 
partment for  historical  lucubrations,  and 
should  be  glad,  if  deemed  desirable,  to  for- 
ward for  publication  my  "Collections  for 
the  Antiquities  of  Jaalam,"  and  my  (now 
happily  complete)  pedigree  of  the  Wilbur 
family  from  its  fans  et  origo,  the  Wild  Boar 
of  Ardennes.  Withdrawn  from  the  active 
duties  of  my  profession  by  the  settlement 
of  a  colleague-pastor,  the  Reverend  Jedu- 
thun  Hitchcock,  formerly  of  Brutus  Four- 
Corners,  I  might  find  time  for  further  con- 
tributions to  general  literature  on  similar 
topicks.  I  have  made  large  advances  to- 
wards a  completer  genealogy  of  Mrs.  Wil- 
bur's family,  the  Pilcoxes,  not,  if  I  know  my- 
self, from  any  idle  vanity,  but  with  the  sole 
desire  of  rendering  myself  useful  in  my  day 
and  generation.  Nulla  dies  sine  lined.  I 
inclose  a  meteorological  register,  a  list  of 
the  births,  deaths,  and  marriages,  and  a 
few  memorabilia  of  longevity  in  Jaalam 
East  Parish  for  the  last  half-century. 
Though  spared  to  the  unusual  period  of 
more  than  eighty  years,  I  rind  no  diminu- 
tion of  my  faculties  or  abatement  of  my 
natural  vigor,  except  a  scarcely  sensible 
decay  of  memory  and  a  necessity  of  recur- 
ring to  younger  eyesight  or  spectacles  for 
the  finer  print  in  Cruden.  It  would  gratify 
me  to  make  some  further  provision  for  de- 
clining years  from  the  emoluments  of  my 
literary  labors.  I  had  intended  to  effect 
an  insurance  on  my  life,  but  was  deterred 
therefrom  by  a  circular  from  one  of  the  of- 
fices, in  which  the  sudden  death  of  so  large 
a  proportion  of  the  insured  was  set  forth 
as  an  inducement,  that  it  seemed  to  me 
little  less  than  a  tempting  of  Providence. 
JVeque  in  summd  inopid  levis  esse  senectus 
potest,  ne  sapienti  quidem. 

Thus  far  concerning  Mr.  Biglow  ;  and  so 
much  seemed  needful  (brevis  esse  labor o) 
by  way  of  preliminary,  after  a  silence  of 
fourteen  years.  He  greatly  fears  lest  he 
may  in  this  essay  have  fallen  below  him- 
self, well  knowing  that,  if  exercise  be  dan- 


gerous on  a  full  stomach,  no  less  so  is 
writing  on  a  full  reputation.  Beset  as  he 
has  been  on  all  sides,  he  could  not  refrain, 
and  would  only  imprecate  patience  till  he 
shall  again  have  "got  the  hang"  (as  he 
calls  it)  of  an  accomplishment  long  disused. 
The  letter  of  Mr.  Sawin  was  received  some 
time  in  last  J une,  and  others  have  followed 
which  will  in  due  season  be  submitted  to 
the  publick.  How  largely  his  statements 
are  to  be  depended  on,  I  more  than  merely 
dubitate.  He  was  always  distinguished  for 
a  tendency  to  exaggeration,  —  it  might  al- 
most be  qualified  by  a  stronger  term.  For- 
titer  mentire,  aliquid  hasret,  seemed  to  be 
his  favourite  rule  of  rhetorick.  That  he 
is  actually  where  he  says  he  is  the  post- 
mark would  seem  to  confirm  ;  that  he  was 
received  with  the  publick  demonstrations 
he  describes  would  appear  consonant  with 
what  we  know  of  the  habits  of  those  re- 
gions ;  but  further  than  this  I  venture  not 
to  decide.  I  have  sometimes  suspected  a 
vein  of  humor  in  him  which  leads  him  to 
speak  by  contraries  ;  but  since,  in  the  un- 
restrained intercourse  of  private  life,  I  have 
never  observed  in  him  any  striking  powers 
of  invention,  I  am  the  more  willing  to  put 
a  certain  qualified  faith  in  the  incidents  and 
the  details  of  life  and  manners  which  give 
to  his  narratives  some  portion  of  the  inter- 
est and  entertainment  which  characterizes 
a  Century  Sermon. 

It  may  be  expected  of  me  that  I  should 
say  something  to  justify  myself  with  the 
world  for  a  seeming  inconsistency  with  my 
well-known  principles  in  allowing  my 
youngest  son  to  raise  a  company  for  the 
war,  a  fact  known  to  all  through  the  me- 
dium of  the  publick  prints.  I  did  reason 
with  the  young  man,  but  expellas  naturam 
furcd,  tamen  usque  recurrit.  Having  my- 
self been  a  chaplain  in  1812,  I  could  the 
less  wonder  that  a  man  of  war  had  sprung 
from  my  loins.  It  was,  indeed,  grievous 
to  send  my  Benjamin,  the  child  of  my  old 
age  ;  but  after  the  discomfiture  of  Manas- 
sas, I  with  my  own  hands  did  buckle  on 
his  armour,  trusting  in  the  great  Com- 
forter and  Commander  for  strength  accord- 
ing to  my  need.  For  truly  the  memory 
of  a  brave  son  dead  in  his  shroud  were 
a  greater  staff  of  my  declining  years  than 
a  living  coward  (if  those  may  be  said  to 
have  lived  who  carry  all  of  themselves 
into  the  grave  with  them),  though  his 
days  might  be  long  in  the  land,  and  he 
should  get  much  goods.  It  is  not  till  our 
earthen  vessels  are  broken  that  we  find 
and  truly  possess  the  treasure  that  was 
laid  up  in  them.  Migravi  in  animam 
meam,  I  have  sought  refuge  in  my  own 
soul ;    nor  would  I  be  shamed  by  the 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


233 


heathen  comedian  with  his  Nequam  illud 
verbum,  bene  vult,  nisi  bene  facit.  During 
our  dark  days,  I  read  constantly  in  the  in- 
spired book  of  Job,  which  1  believe  to  con- 
tain more  food  to  maintain  the  fibre  of  the 
soul  for  right  living  and  high  thinking 
than  all  pagan  literature  together,  though 
I  would  by  no  means  vilipend  the  study  of 
the  classicks.  There  1  read  that  Job  said 
in  his  despair,  even  as  the  fool  saith  in  his 
heart  there  is  no  God,  —  The  tabernacles 
of  robbers  prosper,  and  they  that  provoke 
God  are  secure."  {Job  xii.  6.)  But  I 
sought  farther  till  I  found  this  Scripture 
also,  which  I  would  have  those  perpend 
who  have  striven  to  turn  our  Israel  aside 
to  the  worship  of  strange  gods  :  —  "  If  I 
did  despise  the  cause  of  my  man-servant 
or  of  my  maid-servant  when  they  contended 
with  me,  what  then  shall  I  do  when  God 
riseth  up  ?  and  when  he  visiteth,  what 
shall  I  answer  him?"  (Job  xxxi.  13,  14.) 
On  this  text  I  preached  a  discourse  on  the 
last  day  of  Fasting  and  Humiliation  with 
general  acceptance,  though  there  were  not 
wanting  one  or  two  Laodiceans  who  said 
that  I  should  have  waited  till  the  President 
announced  his  policy.  But  let  us  hope 
and  pray,  remembering  this  of  Saint  Greg- 
ory, Vult  Deus  rogari,  vult  cogi,  vult  qud- 
dam  importunitate  vinci. 

We  had  our  first  fall  of  snow  on  Friday 
last.  Frosts  have  been  unusually  back- 
ward this  fall.  A  singular  circumstance 
occurred  in  this  town  on  the  20th  October, 
in  the  family  of  Deacon  Pelatiah  Tinkham. 
On  the  previous  evening,  a  few  moments 
before  family  prayers, 

***** 

[The  editors  of  the  Atlantic  find  it  ne- 
cessary here  to  cut  short  the  letter  of  their 
valued  correspondent,  which  seemed  cal- 
culated rather  on  the  rates  of  longevity  in 
Jaalam  than  for  less  favored  localities. 
They  have  every  encouragement  to  hope 
that  he  will  write  again.] 
With  esteem  and  respect, 
Your  obedient  servant, 

Homer  Wilbur,  A.  M. 

It 's  some  consid'ble  of  a  spell  sence  I 

hain't  writ  no  letters, 
An'  ther'  \s  gret  changes  hez  took  place 

in  all  polit'cle  metters  ; 
Some  canderdates  air  dead  an'  gone,  an' 

some  hez  ben  defeated, 
Which  'mounts  to  pooty  much  the  same  ; 

fer  it  \s  ben  proved  repeated 
A  betch  o'  bread  thet  hain't  riz  once 

ain't  goin'  to  rise  agin, 


An'  it 's  jest  money  throwed  away  to 

put  the  emptins  in  : 
But  thet 's  wut  folks  wun't  never  lam  ; 

they  dunno  how  to  go, 
Arter  you  want  their  room,  no  more  'n 

a  bullet-headed  beau  ; 
Ther'  's  oilers  chaps  a-hangin'  rovm'  thet 

can't  see  peatime 's  past, 
MLs'ble  as   roosters  in  a  rain,  heads 

down  an'  tails  half-mast : 
It  ain't  disgraceful  bein'  beat,  when  a 

holl  nation  doos  it, 
But  Chance  is  like  an  amberill,  —  it 

don't  take  twice  to  lose  it. 

I  spose  you  're  kin'  o'  cur'ous,  now,  to 

know  why  1  hain't  writ. 
Wal,  I 've   ben  where  a   litt'ry  taste 

don't  somehow  seem  to  git 
Th'  encouragement  a  feller 'd  think, 

thet 's  used  to  public  schools, 
An'  where  sech  things  ez  paper  'n'  ink 

air  clean  agin  the  rules  : 
A  kind  o'  vicyvarsy  house,  built  dreffle 

strong  an'  stout, 
'So 's  't  honest  people  can't  get  in,  ner 

t'  other  sort  git  out, 
An'   with  the  winders   so  contrived, 

you 'd  prob'ly  like  the  view 
Better  alookin'  in  than  out,  though  it 

seems  sing'lar,  tu  ; 
But  then  the  landlord  sets  by  ye,  can't 

bear  ye  out  o'  sight, 
And  locks  ye  up  ez  reg'lar  ez  an  outside 

door  at  night. 

This  world  is  awfle  contrary :  the  rope 

may  stretch  yonv  neck 
Thet  mebby  kep'  another  chap  frum 

washin'  off  a  wreck  ; 
An'  you  may  see  the  taters  grow  in  one 

poor  feller's  patch, 
So  small  no  self-respectin'  hen  thet  val- 

lied  time  'ould  scratch, 
So  small  the  rot  can't  find  'em  out,  an* 

then  agin,  nex'  door, 
Ez  big  ez  wut  hogs  dream  on  when 

they  're  'most  too  fat  to  snore. 
But  groutin'  ain't  no  kin'  o'  use  ;  an'  ef 

the  fust  throw  fails, 
Why,  up  an'  try  agin,  thet 's  all,  — the 

coppers  ain't  all  tails  ; 
Though  I  hev  seen  'em  when  I  thought 

they  hed  n't  no  more  head 
Than  'd  sarve  a  nussin'  Brigadier  thet 

gits  some  ink  to  shed. 


234 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


When  I  writ  last,  I 'd  ben  turned  loose 

by  thet  blamed  nigger,  Pomp, 
Ferlorner  than  a  musquash,  ef  you 'd 

took  an'  dreened  his  swamp  : 
But  1  ain't  o'  the  meechin'  kind,  thet 

sets  an'  thinks  fer  weeks 
The  bottom 's  out  o'  th'  univarse  coz 

their  own  gillpot  leaks. 
I  hed  to  cross  bayous  an'  eriks,  (wal,  it 

did  beat  all  natur',) 
Upon  a  kin'  o'  corderoy,  fust  log,  then 

alligator  ; 

Luck'ly,  the  critters  warn't  sharp-sot ; 

I  guess 't  wuz  overruled 
They'd  done  their  mornin's  marketin' 

an'  gut  their  hunger  cooled  ; 
Fer  missionaries  to  the  Creeks  an'  run- 
aways are  viewed 
By  them  an'  folks  ez  sent  express  to  be 

their  reg'lar  food  ; 
Wutever 't  wuz,  they  laid  an'  snoozed 

ez  peacefully  ez  sinners, 
Meek  ez  disgestin'  deacons  be  at  ordina- 
tion dinners  ; 
Ef  any  on  'em  turned  an'  snapped,  I 

let  'em  kin'  o'  taste 
My  live-oak  leg,  an'  so,  ye  see,  ther' 

warn't  no  gret  o'  waste  ; 
Fer  they  found  out  in  quicker  time  than 

ef  they 'd  ben  to  college 
'T  warn't  heartier  food  than  though 't  wuz 

made  out  o'  the  tree  o'  knowledge. 
But  /  tell  you  my  other  leg  hed  lamed 

wut  pizon -nettle  meant, 
An'  var'ous  other  usefle  things,  afore  I 

reached  a  settlement, 
An'   all  o'  me   thet  wuz  n't  sore  an' 

sen  din'  prickles  thru  me 
Wuz  jest  the  leg  I  parted  with  inlickin' 

Montezumy : 
A  useful  limb  it 's  ben  to  me,  an'  more 

of  a  support 
Than  wut  the  other  hez  ben,  —  coz  I 

dror  my  pension  for 't. 

Wal,  I  gut  in  at  last  where  folks  wuz 

civerlized  an'  white, 
Ez  I  diskivered  to  my  cost  afore 't  warn't 

hardly  night ; 
Fer  'z  1  wuz  settin'  in  the  bar  a-takin' 

sunthin'  hot, 
An'  feelin'  like  a  man  agin,  all  over  in 

one  spot, 

A  feller  thet  sot  oppersite,  arter  a  squint 
at  me, 

Lep  up  an'  drawed  his  peacemaker,  an', 
"Dash  it,  Sir,"  suz  he, 


"I 'm  doubledashed  ef  you  ain't  him 
thet  stole  my  yaller  chettle, 

(You  're  all  the  stranger  thet 's  around, ) 
so  now  you 've  gut  to  settle ; 

It  ain't  no  use  to  argerfy  ner  try  to  cut 
up  frisky, 

I  know  ye  ez  I  know  the  smell  of  ole 

chain -light nin'  whiskey  ; 
We  're  lor-abidin'  folks  down  here,  we  '11 

fix  ye  so 's 't  a  bar 
Would  n'  tech  ye  with  a  ten-foot  pole  ; 

(Jedge,  you  jest  w7arm  the  tar  ;) 
You  '11  think  you 'd  better  ha'  gut  among 

a  tribe  o'  Mongrel  Tartars, 
'fore  we 've  done  showin'  how  we  raise 

our  Southun  prize  tar-martyrs ; 
A  moultin'  fallen  cherubim,  ef  he  should 

see  ye,  'd  snicker, 
Thinkin'  he   warn't  a  suck emsta nee. 

Come,  genlemun,  le'  's  liquor  ; 
An',  Gin'ral,  when  you 've  mixed  the 

drinks  an'  chalked  'em  up,  tote 

roun' 

An'  see  ef  ther'  's  a  feather-bed  (thet 's 

borryable)  in  town 
We  '11  try  ye  fair,  ole  Grafted-Leg,  an' 

ef  the  tar  wun't  stick, 
Th'  ain't  not  a  juror  here  but  wut  '11 

'quit  ye  double-quick." 
To  cut  it  short,  I  wun't  say  sweet,  they 

gi'  me  a  good  dip, 
(They  ain't  perfessi?i  Bahptists  here,) 

then  give  the  bed  a  rip,  — 
The  jury 'd  sot,  an'  quicker  'n  a  flash 

they  hetched  me  out,  a  livin' 
Extemp'ry  mammoth  turkey-chick  fer  a 

Fejee  Thank  sgivin'. 
Thet  1  felt  some  stuck  up  is  wut  it 's 

nat'ral  to  suppose, 
When  poppylar  enthusiasm  hed  fun- 

nished  me  sech  clo'es  ; 
(Ner 't  ain't  without  edvantiges,  this 

kin'  o'  suit,  ye  see, 
It 's  water-proof,  an'  water 's  wut  I  like 

kep'  out  o'  me  ;) 
But  nut  content  with  thet,  they  took  a 

kerridge  from  the  fence 
An'  rid  me  roun'  to  see  the  place,  en- 
tirely free  'f  expense, 
With  forty-' le ven   new  kines  o'  sarse 

without  no  charge  acquainted  me, 
Gi'  me  three  cheers,  an'  vowed  thet  I 

wuz  all  their  fahncy  painted  me  ; 
They  treated  me  to  all  their  eggs  ;  (they 

keep  'em  I  should  think, 
Fer  sech  ovations,  pooty  long,  for  they 

wuz  mos'  distinc'  ;) 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


235 


They  starred  me  thick  'z  the  Milky-Way 

with  indiscrim'nit  cherity, 
Fer  wut  we  call  reception  eggs  air  sun- 
thin'  of  a  rerity ; 
Green  ones  is  plentifle  anough,  skurce 

wuth  a  nigger's  ge therm, 
But  your  dead-ripe  ones  ranges  high  fer 

treatin'  Nothun  bretherin  ; 
A  spotteder,  ringstreakeder  child  the' 

warn't  in  Uncle  Sam's 
lloll  farm,  —  a  cross  of  striped  pig  an' 

one  o'  Jacob's  lambs  ; 
'T  wuz  Dannil  in  the  lions'  den,  new  an' 

enlarged  edition, 
An'  everythin'  fust-rate  o'  'ts  kind ;  the' 

warn't  no  jmpersition. 
People  ^s  impulsiver  down  here  than  wut 

our  folks  to  home  he, 
An'  kin'  o'  go  it  'ith  a  resh  in  raisin' 

Hail  Columby : 
Thet  's  so :  an'  they  swarmed  out  like 

bees,  for  your  real  Southun  men's 
Time  is  n't  o'  much  more  account  than 

an  ole  settin'  hen's  ; 
(They  jest  work  semioccashnally,  or  else 

don't  work  at  all, 
An'  so  their  time  an'  'tention  both  air  at 

saci'ty's  call.) 
Talk  about  hospatality !   wut  Nothun 

town  d'  ye  know 
Would  take  a  totle  stranger  up  an'  treat 

him  gratis  so  ? 
You 'd  better  b'lieve  ther'  's  nothin'  like 

this  spendin'  days  an'  nights 
Along  'ith  a  dependent  race  fer  civerliz- 

in'  whites. 

But  this  wuz  all  prelim'nary;  it  's  so 

Gran'  Jurors  here 
Fin'  a  true  bill,  a  hendier  way  than 

ourn,  an'  nut  so  dear ; 
So  arter  this  they  sentenced  me,  to  make 

all  tight  'n'  snug, 
Afore  a  reg'lar  court  o'  law,  to  ten  years 

in  the  Jug. 
I  did  n't  make  no  gret  defence  :  you 

don't  feel  much  like  speakin', 
When,  ef  you  let  your  clamshells  gape, 

a' quart  o'  tar  will  leak  in  : 
I  hev  hearn  tell  o'  winged  words,  but 

pint  o'  fact  it  tethers 
The  spoutin'  gift  to  hev  your  words  tu 

thick  sot  on  with  feathers, 
An'  Choate  ner  Webster  would  n't  ha' 

made  an  A  1  kin'  o'  speech 
Astride  a  Southun  chestnut  horse  sharp- 
er 'n  a  baby's  screech. 


Two  year  ago  they  k etched  the  thief,  'n' 

seein'  I  wuz  innercent, 
They  jest  uncorked  an'  le'  me  run,  an' 

in  my  stid  the  sinner  sent 
To  see  how  he  liked  pork  'n'  pone  flav- 
ored with  wa'nut  saplin', 
An'  nary  social  priv'ledge  but  a  one-hoss, 

starn-wheel  chaplin. 
When  I  come  out,  the  folks  behaved 

mos'  gen'manly  an'  harnsome ; 
They  'lowed  it  would  n't  be  more  'n 

right,  ef  I  should  cuss  'n*  darn 

some : 

The  Cunnle   he  apolergized;   suz  he, 

"  I  '11  du  wut 's  right, 
I  '11  give  ye  settisfection  now  by  shootin' 

ye  at  sight, 
An'  give  the  nigger  (when  he 's  caught), 

to  pay  him  fer  his  trickin' 
In  gittin'  the  wrong  man  took  up,  a 

most  H  fired  lickin',  — 
It 's  jest  the  way  with  all  on  'em,  the 

inconsistent  critters, 
They  're  'most  enough  to  make  a  man 

blaspheme  his  mornin'  bitters  ; 
I  '11  be  your  frien'  thru  thick  an'  thin 

an'  in  all  kines  o'  weathers, 
An'  all  you  '11  hev  to  pay  fer  's  jest  the 

waste  o'  tar  an'  feathers : 
A  lady  owned  the  bed,  ye  see,  a  widder, 

tu,  Miss  Shennon ; 
It  wuz  her  mite  ;  we  would  ha'  took 

another,  ef  ther  'd  ben  one : 
We  don't  make  no  charge  for  the  ride 

an'  all  the  other  fixins. 
Le*  's  liquor ;  Gin'ral,  you  can  chalk  our 

friend  for  all  the  mixins." 
A  meetin'  then  wuz  called,  where  they 

"  Resolved,  Thet  we  respec' 
B.  S.  Esquire  for  quallerties  o'  heart  an' 

intellec' 

Peculiar  to  Columby's  sile,  an'  not  to  no 
one  else's, 

Thet  makes  European  tyrans  scringe  in 
all  their  gilded  pel'ces, 

An'  doos  gret  honor  to  our  race  an' 
Southun  institootions  "  : 

(I  give  ye  jest  the  substance  o'  the  lead- 
in'  resolootions  :) 

''Resolved,  Thet  we  revere  in  him  a 
soger  'thout  a  flor, 

A  martyr  to  the  princerples  o'  libbaty 
an'  lor : 

Resolved,  Thet  other  nations  all,  ef  sot 
'longside  o'  us, 

For  vartoo,  larnin',  chivverlry,  ain't  no- 
ways wuth  a  cuss." 


236 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


They  gut  up  a  subscription,  tu,  but  no 

gret  come  o'  thet ; 
I  'xpect  in  cairin'  of  it  roun'  they  took  a 

leaky  hat ; 
Though  Southun  genelmun  ain't  slow  at 

puttin'  down  their  name, 
(When  they  can  write,)  fer  in  the  eend 

it  comes  to  jes'  the  same, 
Because,  ye  see,  't 's  the  fashion  here  to 

sign  an'  not  to  think 
A  critter 'd  be  so  sordid  ez  to  ax  'em  for 

the  chink  : 
1  did  n't  call  but  jest  on  one,  an'  he 

drawed  toothpick  on  me, 
An'  reckoned  he  warn't  goiii'  to  stan'  no 

sech  doggauned  econ'my ; 
So  nothin'  more  wuz  realized,  'ceptin' 

the  good-will  shown, 
Than  ef 't  had  ben  from  fust  to  last  a 

reg'lar  Cotton  Loan. 
It 's  a  good  way,  though,  come  to  think, 

coz  ye  enjy  the  sense 
O'  lendin'  lib' rally  to  the  Lord,  an'  nary 

red  o'  'xpense : 
Sence  then  1  've  gut  my  name  up  for  a 

gin'rous-hearted  man 
By  jes'  subscribin'  right  an'  left  on  this 

high-minded  plan  ; 
I 've  gin  away  my  thousans  so  to  every 

Southun  sort 
0'  missions,  colleges,  an'  sech,  ner  ain't 

no  poorer  for  't. 

I  warn't  so  bad  off,  arter  all  ;  I  need  n't 

hardly  mention 
That  Guv'ment  owed  me  quite  a  pile  for 

my  arrears  o'  pension,  — 
I  mean  the  poor,  weak  thing  we  lied:  we 

run  a  new  one  now, 
Thet  strings  a  feller  with  a  claim  up  ta 

the  nighes'  bough, 
An'  prectises  the  rights  o'  man,  purtects 

down-trodden  debtors, 
Ner   wun't   hev   creditors    about  a- 

scrougin'  o'  their  betters  : 
Jeff'  \s  gut  the  last  idees  ther'  is,  pos- 

crip',  fourteenth  edition, 
He  knows  it  takes  some  enterprise  to 

run  an  oppersition  ; 
Ourn 's  the  fust  thru-by-daylight  train, 

with  all  ou'doors  for  deepot ; 
Yourn  goes  so  slow  you 'd  think 't  wuz 

drawed  by  a  las'  cent'ry  teapot ;  — 
Wal,  I  gut  all  on  't  paid  in  gold  afore 

our  State  seceded, 
An'   done   wal,  for   Confed'rit  bonds 

warn't  jest  the  cheese  1  needed  : 


Nutbutwut  they  're  ez  good  ez  gold,  but 

then  it 's  hard  a-breakin'  on  'em, 
An'  ignorant  folks  is  oilers  sot  an'  wun't 

git  used  to  takin'  on  'em  ; 
They  're  wuth  ez  much  ez  wut  they  wuz 

afore  ole  Mem'nger  signed  'em, 
An'  go  off  middlin'  wal  for  drinks, 

when  ther's 's  a  knife  behind  'em  ; 
We  du  miss  silver,  jes'  fer  thet  an'  ridin' 

in  a  bus, 

Now  we 've  shook  off  the  desputs  thet 
wuz  suckin'  at  our  pus  ; 

An'  it 's  because  the  South 's  so  rich  ;  't 
wuz  nat'ral  to  expec' 

Supplies  o'  Change  wuz  jes'  the  things  we 
should  n't  recollec'  ; 

We 'd  ough'  to  ha'  thought  aforehan', 
though,  o'  thet  good  rule  o'  Crock- 
ett's, 

For 't 's  tiresome  cairin'  cotton-bales  an' 

niggers  in  your  pockets, 
Ner 't  ain't  quite  hendy  to  pass  olf  one 

o'  your  six-foot  Guineas 
An'  git  your  halves  an'  quarters  back  in 

gals  an'  pickaninnies  : 
Wal,  't  ain't  quite  all  a  feller 'd  ax,  but 

then  ther'  's  this  to  say, 
It 's  on'y  jest  among  ourselves  thet  wTe 

expec'  to  pay  ; 
Our  system  would  ha'  caird  us  thru  in 

any  Bible  cent'ry, 
'fore  this  onscripterl  plan  come  up  o' 

books  by  double  entry  ; 
We  go  the  patriarkle  here  out  o'  all 

sight  an'  hearin', 
For  Jacob  warn't  a  suckemstance  to 

Jeff  at  fmancierin'  ; 
He  never 'd  thought  o'  borryin'  from 

Esau  like  all  nater 
An'  then  cornfiscatin'  all  debts  to  sech 

a  small  pertater  ; 
There 's  p'litickle  econ'my,  now,  com- 
bined 'ith  morril  beauty 
Thet  saycriflces  privit  eends  (your  in'- 

my's,  tu)  to  dooty  ! 
Wy,  Jeff 'd  ha'  gin  him  five  an'  won  his 

eye-teeth  'fore  he  knowed  it, 
An',  stid  o'  wastin'  pottage,  he 'd  ha'  eat 

it  up  an'  owed  it. 
But  I  wuz  goin'  on  to  say  how  I  come 

here  to  dwall  ;  — 
'Nough  said,  thet,  arter  lookin'  roun', 

I  liked  the  place  so  wal, 
Where  niggers  doos  a  double  good,  with 

us  atop  to  stiddy  'em, 
By  bein'  proofs  o'  prophecy  an'  suckle- 

atin'  medium, 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


237 


Where  a  man 's  sunthm'  coz  he 's  white, 
an'  whiskey 's  cheap  ez  fleas, 

An'  the  financial  pollercy  jes'  sooted  my 
idees, 

Thet  1  friz  down  right  where  I  wuz, 
merried  the  Widder  Shennon, 

(Her  thirds  wuz  part  in  cotton-land, 
part  in  the  curse  o'  Canaan,) 

An'  here  1  be  ez  lively  ez  a  chipmunk 
on  a  wall, 

With  nothin'  to  feel  riled  about  much 
later  'n  Eddam's  fall. 

Ez  fur  ez  human  foresight   goes,  we 

made  an  even  trade  : 
She  gut  an  overseer,  an'  I  a  fem'ly 

ready-made, 
The  youngest  on  'em  's  'mos'  growed  up, 

rugged  an'  spry  ez  weazles, 
So 's  't  ther'  's  no  resk  o'  doctors'  bills 

fer  hoopin' -cough  an'  measles. 
Our  farm 's  at  Turkey- Buzzard  Roost, 

Little  Big  Boosy  River, 
Wal  located  in  all  respex,  — ■  fer 't  ain't 

the  chills  'n'  fever 
Thet  makes  my  writin'  seem  to  squirm  ; 

a  Southuner 'd  allow  I 'd 
Some  call  to  shake,  for  I 've  jest  hed  to 

meller  a  new  cowhide. 
JNIiss  S.  is  all  'f  a  lady  ;  th'  ain't  no  bet- 
ter on  Big  Boosy 
Ner  one  with  more  accomplishmunts 

'twixt  here  an'  Tuscaloosy  ; 
She's  an  F.  F.,  the  tallest  kind,  an' 

prouder  'n  the  Gran'  Turk, 
An'  never  hed  a  relative  thet  done  a 

stroke  o'  work  ; 
Hern  ain't  a  scrim  pin'  fem'ly  sech  ez 

you  git  up  Down  East, 
Th'  ain't  a  growed  member  on  't  but 

owes  his  thousuns  et  the  least : 
She  is  some  old ;  but  then  agin  ther'  's 

drawbacks  in  my  sheer  : 
Wut 's  left  o'  me  ain't  more  'n  enough 

to  make  a  Brigadier  : 
Wust  is,  thet  she  hez  tantrums  ;  she 's 

like  Seth  Moody's  gun 
(Him  thet  wtuz  nicknamed  frum  his  limp 

Ole  Dot  an'  Kerry  One) ; 
He  'd  left  her  loaded  up  a  spell,  an'  hed 

to  git  her  clear, 
So  he  onhitched,  —  Jeerusalem  !  the 

middle  o'  last  year 
Wuz  right  nex'  door  compared  to  where 

she  kicked  the  critter  tu 
(Though  jest  where  he  brought  up  wuz 

wut  no  human  never  knew)  ; 


His  brother  Asaph  picked  her  up  an' 

tied  her  to  a  tree, 
An'  then  she  kicked  an  hour  'n'  a  half 

afore  she  'd  let  it  be  : 
Wal,  Miss  S.  doos  hev  cuttins-up  an' 

pourins-out  o'  vials, 
But  then  she  hez  her  widcler's  thirds,  an' 

all  on  us  hez  trials. 
My  objec',   though,   in  writin'  now 

warn't  to  allude  to  sech, 
But  to  another    suckemstance  more 

dellykit  to  tech,  — 
I  want  thet  you  should  grad'lly  break 

my  merriage  to  Jerushy, 
An'  there's  a  heap  of  argymunts  thet's 

emple  to  indooce  ye : 
Fust  place,  State's  Prison,  —  wTal,  it 's 

true  it  warn't  fer  crime,  o'  course, 
But  then  it 's  jest  the  same  fer  her  in 

gittin'  a  disvorce  ; 
Nex'  place,  my  State  \s  secedin'  out  hez 

leg'lly  lef  me  free 
To  merry  any  one  I  please,  pervidin' 

it 's  a  she  ; 
Fin'lly,  I  never  wun't  come  back,  she 

need  n't  hev  no  fear  on 't, 
But  then  it 's  wal  to  fix  things  right  fer 

fear  Miss  S.  should  hear  on  't ; 
Lastly,  I 've  gut  religion  South,  an' 

Rushy  she  's  a  pagan 
Thet  sets  by  th'  graven  imiges  o'  the 

gret  Nothun  Dagon  ; 
(Now  1  hain't  seen  one  in  six  munts, 

for,  sence  our  Treashry  Loan, 
Though  yaller  boys  is  thick  anongh, 

eagles  hez  kind  o'  flown  ;) 
An'  ef  J  wants  a  stronger  pint  than 

them  thet  I  hev  stated, 
Wy,  she 's  an   aliun  in'my  now7,  an' 

I 've  been  cornfiscated,  — 
For  sence  we 've  entered  on  th'  estate  o' 

the  late  nay sh  mil  eagle, 
She  hain't  no  kin'  o'  right  but  jes'  wut 

I  allow  ez  legle  : 
Wut  doos  Secedin'  mean,  eft  ain't  thet 

nat'rul  rights  hez  riz,  'n' 
Thet  wut  is  mine 's  my  own,  but  wut 's 

another  man's  ain't  his'n  ? 

Besides,  I  could  n't  do  no  else  ;  Miss  S. 

suz  she  to  me, 
"You've  sheered  my  bed,"  [thet's 

when  I  paid  my  interduction  fee 
To  Southun  rites,]    "an'   kep'  your 

sheer,"  [wal,  I  allow  it  sticked 
So's  't  I  wuz  most  six  weeks  in  jail 

afore  I  gut  me  picked,] 


238 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


"  Ner  never  paid  no  demmiges ;  but 

thet  wun't  do  no  harm, 
Pervidin'  thet  you  '11  ondertake  to  over- 
see the  farm  ; 
(My  eldes'  boy 's  so  took  up,  wut  with 

the  Ringtail  Rangers 
An'  settin'  in  the  Jestice-Court  for  wel- 

comin'  o'  strangers  "  ;) 
[Pie  sot  on  me;]  "an'  so,  ef  you'll  jest 

ondertake  the  care 
Upon  a  mod'rit  sellery,  we'll  up  an' 

call  it  square  ; 
But  ef  you  cant  conclude,"  suz  she,  an' 

give  a  kin'  o'  grin, 
"Wy,  the  Gran'  Jurymen,  I  'xpect,  '11 

hev  to  set  agin." 
That's  the  way  metters  stood  at  fust; 

now  wut  wuz  1  to  du, 
But  jes'  to  make  the  best  on 't  an'  off 

coat  an'  buckle  tu  ? 
Ther'  ain't  a  livin'  man  thet  finds  an 

income  necessarier 
Than  me,  —  bimeby  I'll  tell  ye  how  I 

fin'lly  come  to  merry  her. 

She  hed  another  motive,  tu :  I  mention 
of  it  here 

T'  encourage  lads  thet 's  growin'  up  to 

study  'n'  persevere, 
Au'  show  'em  how  much  better 't  pays 

to  mind  their  winter-schoolin' 
Than  to  go  off  on  benders  'n'  sech,  an' 

waste  their  time  in  foolin' ; 
Ef  't  warn't  for  study  in'  evenins,  why,  I 

never 'd  ha'  ben  here 
An  orn'ment  o'  saciety,  in  my  approprut 

spear : 

She  wanted  somebody,  ye  see,  o'  taste 

an'  cultivation, 
To  talk  along  o'  preachers  when  they 

stopt  to  the  plantation ; 
For  folks  in  Dixie  th't  read  an'  rite, 

onless  it  is  by  jarks, 
Is  skurce  ez  wut  they  wuz  among  th' 

oridgenle  patriarchs ; 
To  fit  a  feller  f  wut  they  call  the  soshle 

higherarchy, 
All  thet  you 've  gut  to  know  is  jes'  be- 

yund  an  evrage  darky ; 
Schoolin'  's  wut  they  can't  seem  to  stan', 

they  're  tu  consarned  high-pressure, 
An'  knowin' t'  much  might  spile  a  boy 

for  bein'  a  Secesher. 
We  hain't  no  settled  preachin'  here,  ner 

ministeril  taxes ; 
The  min'ster's  only  settlement 's  the 

carpet-bag  he  packs  his 


Razor   an'  soap-brush  intn,  with  his 

hy m book  an'  his  Bible,  — 
But  they  du  preach,  I  swan  to  man,  it 's 

puf  kly  indescrib'le ! 
They  go  it  like  an  Ericsson's  ten-hoss- 

power  coleric  ingine, 
An'  make  Ole   Split-Foot  winch  an' 

squirm,  for  all  he 's  used  to  singein' ; 
Hawkins's  whetstone  ain't  a  pinch  o' 

primin'  to  the  innards 
To  hearin'  on  'em  put  free  grace  t'  a  lot 

o'  tough  old  sinhards ! 
But  I  must  eend  this  letter  now :  'fore 

long  I  '11  send  a  fresh  un ; 
I 've  lots  o'  things  to  wrrite  about,  per- 

ticklerly  Seceshun : 
I 'm  called  off  now  to  mission-work,  to 

let  a  leetle  law  in 
To  Cynthy's  hide :  an'  so,  till  death, 
Yourn, 

BIRDOFREDUM  SAWIN. 


No.  II. 

MASON  AND  SLIDELL  :  A  YANKEE 
IDYLL. 

TO  THE  EDITORS  OF  THE  ATLANTIC 
MONTHLY. 

Jaalam,  6th  Jan.,  1S62. 

Gentlemen,  —  I  was  highly  gratified  by 
the  insertion  of  a  portion  of  my  letter  in 
the  last  number  of*  your  valuable  and  en- 
tertaining Miscellany,  though  in  a  type 
which  rendered  its  substance  inaccessible 
even  to  the  beautiful  new  spectacles  pre- 
sented to  me  by  a  Committee  of  the  Parish 
on  New  Year's  Day.  I  trust  that  I  was 
able  to  bear  your  very  considerable  abridg- 
ment of  my  lucubrations  with  a  spirit  be- 
coming a  Christian.  My  third  granddaugh- 
ter, Rebekah, aged  fourteen  years,  and  whom 
I  have  trained  to  read  slowly  and  with 
proper  emphasis  (a  practice  too  much  neg- 
lected in  our  modern  systems  of  educa- 
tion), read  aloud  to  me  the  excellent  essay 
upon  "Old  Age,"  the  authour  of  which  I 
cannot  help  suspecting  to  be  a  young  man 
who  has  never  yet  known  what  it  was  to 
have  snow  (canities  morosa)  upon  his  own 
roof.  Dissolve  frigus,  large  super  foco  lig- 
na  reponens,  is  a  rule  for  the  young,  whose 
wood-pile  is  yet  abundant  for  such  cheerful 
lenitives.  A  good  life  behind  him  is  the 
best  thing  to  keep  an  old  man's  shoulders 
from  shivering  at  every  breath  of  sorrow  or 
ill-fortune.    But  niethinks  it  were  easier 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


239 


for  an  old  man  to  feel  the  disadvantages  of 
youth  than  the  advantages  of  age.  Of  these 
latter  I  reckon  one  of  the  chiefest  to  be 
this  :  that  we  attach  a  less  inordinate  value 
to  our  own  productions,  and,  distrusting 
daily  more  and  more  our  own  wisdom  (with 
the  conceit  whereof  at  twenty  we  wrap  our- 
selves away  from  knowledge  as  with  a  gar- 
ment), do  reconcile  ourselves  with  the  wis- 
dom of  God.  I  could  have  wished,  indeed, 
that  room  might  have  been  made  for  the 
residue  of  the  anecdote  relating  to  Deacon 
Tinkham,  which  would  not  only  have  grat- 
ified a  natural  curiosity  on  the  part  of  the 
publick  (as  I  have  reason  to  know  from 
several  letters  of  inquiry  already  received), 
but  woiild  also,  as  I  think,  have  largely  in- 
creased (4he  circulation  of  your  Magazine  in 
this  town.  Nihil  humani  alienum,  there- 
is  a  curiosity  about  the  affairs  of  our  neigh- 
bors which  is  not  only  pardonable,  but  even 
commendable.  But  I  shall  abide  a  more 
fitting  season. 

As  touching  the  following  literary  effort 
of  Esquire  Biglow,  much  might  be  profita- 
bly said  on  the  topick  of  Idyliick  and  Pas- 
toral Poetry,  and  concerning  the  proper 
distinctions  to  be  made  between  them,  from 
Theocritus,  the  inventor  of  the  former,  to 
Collins,  the  latest  authour  I  know  of  who 
has  emulated  the  classicks  in  the  latter 
style.  But  in  the  time  of  a  Civil  War  wor- 
thy a  Milton  to  defend  and  a  Lucan  to  sing, 
it  may  be  reasonably  doubted  whether  the 
publick,  never  too  studious  of  serious  in- 
struction, might  not  consider  other  objects 
more  deserving  of  present  attention.  Con- 
cerning the  title  of  Idyll,  which  Mr.  Biglow 
has  adopted  at  my  suggestion,  it  may  not 
be  improper  to  animadvert,  that  the  name 
properly  signifies  a  poem  somewhat  rustick 
in  phrase  (for,  though  the  learned  are  not 
agreed  as  to  the  particular  dialect  employed 
by  Theocritus,  they  are  universanimous 
both  as  to  its  rusticity  and  its  capacity  of 
rising  now  and  then  to  the  level  of  more 
elevated  sentiments  and  expressions),  while 
it  is  also  descriptive  of  real  scenery  and 
maimers.  Yet  it  must  be  admitted  that  the 
production  now  in  question  (which  here  and 
there  bears  perhaps  too  plainly  the  marks 
of  my  correcting  hand)  does  partake  of  the 
nature  of  a  Pastoral,  inasmuch  as  the  in- 
terlocutors therein  are  purely  imaginary 
beings,  and  the  whole  is  little  better  than 
Kanvov  o-ictas  ovap.  The  plot  was,  as  I  be- 
lieve, suggested  by  the  "  Twa  Briggs  "  of 
Robert  Burns,  a  Scottish  poet  of  the  last 
century,  as  that  found  its  prototype  in  the 
"  Mutual  Complaint  of  Plainstanes  and 
Causey  "  by  Fergusson,  though  the  metre 
of  this  latter  be  different  by  a  foot  in  each 
verse.    I  reminded  my  talented  young  par- 


ishioner and  friend  that  Concord  Bridge 
had  long  since  yielded  to  the  edacious  tooth 
of  Time.  But  he  answered  me  to  this  ef- 
fect :  that  there  was  no  greater  mistake  of 
an  authour  than  to  suppose  the  reader  had 
no  fancy  of  his  own  ;  that,  if  once  that  fac- 
ulty was  to  be  called  into  activity,  it  were 
better  to  be  in  for  the  whole  sheep  than  the 
shoulder ;  and  that  he  knew  Concord  like 
a  book,  —  an  expression  questionable  in 
propriety,  since  there  are  few  things  with 
which  he  is  not  more  familiar  than  with 
the  printed  page.  In  proof  of  what  he  af- 
firmed, he  showed  me  some  verses  which 
with  others  he  had  stricken  out  as  too  much 
delaying  the  action,  but  which  I  communi- 
cate in  this  place  because  they  rightly  de- 
fine "  punkin-seed  "  (which  Mr.  Bartlett 
would  have  a  kind  of  perch,  —  a  creature 
to  which  I  have  found  a  rod  or  pole  not  to 
be  so  easily  equivalent  in  our  inland  waters 
as  in  the  books  of  arithmetic),  and  because 
it  conveys  an  eulogium  on  the  worthy  son 
of  an  excellent  father,  with  whose  acquaint- 
ance (eheu,  fugaces  anni  !)  I  was  formerly 
honoured. 

"But  nowadays  the  Bridge  ain't  wut  they 
show, 

So  much  ez  Em'son,  Hawthorne,  an'  Thoreau. 
I  know  the  village,  though  ;  was  sent  there 
once 

A-schoolin',  'cause  to  home  I  played  the 
dunce ; 

An'  I 've  ben  sence  a-visitin'  the  Jedge, 
Whose  garding  whispers  with  the  river's  edge,. 
Where  I 've  sot  mornin's  lazy  as  the  bream, 
Whose  on'y  business  is  to  head  up-stream, 
(We  call  'em  punkin-seed,)  or  else  in  chat 
Along  'th  the  Jedge,  who  covers  with  his  hat 
More  wit  an'  gumption  an'  shrewd  Yankee 
sense 

Than  there  is  mosses  on  an  ole  stone  fence." 

Concerning  the  subject-matter  of  the 
verses,  I  have  not  the  leisure  at  present  to 
write  so  fully  as  I  could  wish,  my  time  be- 
ing occupied  with  the  preparation  of  a  dis- 
course for  the  forthcoming  bi-centenary 
celebration  of  the  first  settlement  of  Jaa- 
lam  East  Parish.  It  may  gratify  the  pub- 
lick interest  to  mention  the  circumstance, 
that  my  investigations  to  this  end  have 
enabled  me  to  verify  the  fact  (of  much  his- 
torick  importance,  and  hitherto  hotly  de- 
bated) that  Shearjashub  Tarbox  was  the 
first  child  of  white  parentage  born  in  this 
town,  being  named  in  his  father's  will 
under  date  August  7th,  or  9th,  1662. 
It  is  well  known  that  those  who  advocate 
the  claims  of  Mehetable  Goings  are  unable 
to  find  any  trace  of  her  existence  prior  to 
October  of  that  year.  As  respects  the  set- 
tlement of  the  Mason  and  Slidell  question, 
Mr.  Biglow  has  not  incorrectly  stated  the 


240 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


popular  sentiment,  so  far  as  I  can  judge 
by  its  expression  in  this  locality.  For 
myself,  I  feel  more  sorrow  than  resent- 
ment :  for  I  am  old  enough  to  have  heard 
those  talk  of  England  who  still,  even  after 
the  unhappy  estrangement,  could  not  un- 
school  their  lips  from  calling  her  the 
Mother-Country.  But  England  has  insisted 
on  ripping  up  old  wounds,  and  has  undone 
the  healing  work  of  fifty  years  ;  for  nations 
do  not  reason,  they  only  feel,  and  the  spre- 
tce  injuria  format  rankles  in  their  minds  as 
bitterly  as  in  that  of  a  woman.  And  be- 
cause this  is  so,  I  feel  the  more  satisfaction 
that  our  Government  has  acted  (as  all  Gov- 
ernments should,  standing  as  they  do  be- 
tween the  people  and  their  passions)  as 
if  it  had  arrived  at  years  of  discretion. 
There  are  three  short  and  simple  words, 
the  hardest  of  all  to  pronounce  in  any  lan- 
guage (and  I  suspect  they  were  no  easier 
before  the  confusion  of  tongues),  but  which 
no  man  or  nation  that  cannot  utter  can 
claim  to  have  arrived  at  manhood.  Those 
words  are,  /  was  wrong ;  and  I  am  proud 
that,  while  England  played  the  boy,  our 
rulers  had  strength  enough  from  the  Peo- 
ple below  and  wisdom  enough  from  God 
above  to  quit  themselves  like  men. 

The  sore  points  on  both  sides  have  been 
skilfully  exasperated  by  interested  and 
unscrupulous  persons,  who  saw  in  a  war 
between  the  two  countries  the  only  hope 
of  profitable  return  for  their  investment  in 
Confederate  stock,  whether  political  or 
financial.  The  always  supercilious,  often 
insulting,  and  sometimes  even  brutal  tone 
of  British  journals  and  publick  men  has 
certainly  not  tended  to  soothe  whatever 
resentment  might  exist  in  America. 

"  Perhaps  it  was  right  to  dissemble  your  love, 
But  why  did  you  kick  me  down  stairs  ?  " 

We  have  no  reason  to  complain  that 
England,  as  a  necessary  consequence  of 
her  clubs,  has  become  a  great  society  for 
the  minding  of  other  people's  business, 
and  we  can  smile  good-naturedly  when  she 
lectures  other  nations  on  the  sins  of  arro- 
gance and  conceit;  but  we  may  justly  con- 
sider it  a  breach  of  the  political  convenances 
which  are  expected  to  regulate  the  inter- 
course of  one  well-bred  government  with 
another,  when  men  holding  places  in  the 
ministry  allow  themselves  to  dictate  our 
domestic  policy,  to  instruct  us  in  our  duty, 
and  to  stigmatize  as  unholy  a  war  for  the 
rescue  of  whatever  a  high-minded  people 
should  hold  most  vital  and  most  sacred. 
Was  it  in  good  taste,  that  I  may  use  the 
mildest  term,  for  Earl  Russell  to  expound 
our  owu  Constitution  to  President  Lincoln, 


or  to  make  a  new  and  fallacious  applica- 
tion of  an  old  phrase  for  *our  benefit,  and 
tell  us  that  the  Rebels  were  fighting  for  in- 
dependence and  we  for  empire  ?  As  if  all 
wars  for  independence  were  by  nature  just 
and  deserving  of  sympathy,  and  all  wars 
for  empire  ignoble  and  worthy  only  of 
reprobation,  or  as  if  these  easy  phrases  in 
any  way  characterized  this  terrible  strug- 
gle, —  terrible  not  so  truly  in  any  superfi- 
cial sense,  as  from  the  essential  and  deadly 
enmity  of  the  principles  that  underlie  it. 
His  Lordship's  bit  of  borrowed  rhetoric 
would  justify  Smith  O'Brien,  Nana  Sahib, 
and  the  Maori  chieftains,  while  it  would 
condemn  nearly  every  war  in  which  Eng- 
land has  ever  been  engaged.  Was  it  so 
very  presumptuous  in  us  to  think  that  it 
would  be  decorous  in  English  statesmen 
if  they  spared  time  enough  to  acquire  some 
kind  of  knowledge,  though  of  the  most 
elementary  kind,  in  regard  to  this  country 
and  the  questions  at  issue  here,  before  they 
pronounced  so  off-hand  a  judgment  ?  Or 
is  political  information  expected  to  come 
Dogberry-fashion  in  England,  like  reading 
and  wiiting,  by  nature  ? 

And  now  all  respectable  England  is  won- 
dering at  our  irritability,  and  sees  a  quite 
satisfactory  explanation  of  it  in  our  na- 
tional vanity.  Suave  mari  magno,  it  is 
pleasant,  sitting  in  the  easy-chairs  of 
Downing  Street,  to  sprinkle  pepper  on  the 
raw  wounds  of  a  kindred  people  struggling 
for  life,  and  philosophical  to  find  in  self- 
conceit  the  cause  of  our  instinctive  resent- 
ment. Surely  we  were  of  all  nations  the 
least  liable  to  any  temptation  of  vanity  at 
a  time  when  the  gravest  anxiety  and  the 
keenest  sorrow  were  never  absent  from  our 
hearts.  Nor  is  conceit  the  exclusive  attri- 
bute of  any  one  nation.  The  earliest  of 
English  travellers,  Sir  John  Mandeville, 
took  a  less  provincial  view  of  the  matter 
when  he  said,  "  For  fro  what  partie  of  the 
erthe  that  men  duellen,  other  aboven  or 
beneathen,  it  semethe  alweys  to  hem  that 
duellen  that  thei  gon  more  righte  than  any 
other  folke."  The  English  have  always 
had  their  fair  share  of  this  amiable  quality. 
We  may  say  of  them  st  ill,  as  the  authour  of 
the  Lettres  Cabalistiques  said  of  them 
more  than  a  century  ago,  "  Ces  dernicrs 
clisent  naturellement  qiCil  n'y  a  qu'eux  qui 
soient  estimables."  And,  as  he  also  says, 
"  J'aimerois  presque  autant  tomber  entre 
les  mains  oVun  Inquisiteur  que  oVun  An- 
glois  qui  me  fait  sentir  sans  cesse  combicn 
il  s'estime  plus  que  moi,  et  qui  ne  daigne 
me  parler  que  pour  injurier  ma  Nation  et 
pour  m'ennuyer  da  recit  des  grandes  quali- 
tes  de  la  sienne."  Of  this  Bull  we  may 
safely  say  with  Horace,  liabet  fce?ium  in 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


241 


cornu.  What  we  felt  to  be  especially  in- 
sulting was  the  quiet  assumption  that  the 
descendants  of  men  who  left  the  Old  World 
for  the  sake  of  principle,  and  who  had  made 
the  wilderness  into  a  New  World  patterned 
after  an  Idea,  could  not  possibly  be  sus- 
ceptible of  a  generous  or  lofty  sentiment, 
could  have  no  feeling  of  nationality  deeper 
than  that  of  a  tradesman  for  his  shop. 
One  would  have  thought,  in  listening  to 
England,  that  we  were  presumptuous  in 
fancying  that  we  were  a  nation  at  all,  or 
had  any  other  principle  of  union  than  that 
of  booths  at  a  fair,  where  there  is  no  higher 
notion  of  government  than  the  constable, 
or  better  image  of  God  than  that  stamped 
upon  the  current  coin. 

It  is  /time  for  Englishmen  to  consider 
whether  there  was  nothing  in  the  spirit  of 
their  press  and  of  their  leading  public  men 
calculated  to  rouse  a  just  indignation,  and 
to  cause  a  permanent  estrangement  on 
the  part  of  any  nation  capable  of  self-re- 
spect, and  sensitively  jealous,  as  ours  then 
was,  of  foreign  interference.  Was  there 
nothing  in  the  indecent  haste  with  which 
belligerent  rights  were  conceded  to  the 
Rebels,  nothing  in  the  abrupt  tone  assumed 
in  the  Trent  case,  nothing  in  the  fitting 
out  of  Confederate  privateers,  that  might 
stir  the  blood  of  a  people  already  over- 
charged with  doubt,  suspicion,  and  terrible 
responsibility  ?  The  laity  in  any  country 
do  not  stop  to  consider  points  of  law,  but 
they  have  an  instinctive  appreciation  of 
the  animus  that  actuates  the  policy  of  a 
foreign  nation  ;  and  in  our  own  case  they 
remembered  that  the  British  authorities  in 
Canada  did  not  wait  till  diplomacy  could 
send  home  to  England  for  her  slow  official 
tinder-box  to  fire  the  "  Caroline."  Add  to 
this,  what  every  sensible  American  knew, 
that  the  moral  support  of  England  was 
equal  to  an  army  of  two  hundred  thousand 
men  to  the  Rebels,  while  it  insured  us  an- 
other year  or  two  of  exhausting  war.  It 
was  not  so  much  the  spite  of  her  words 
(though  the  time  might  have  been  more 
tastefully  chosen)  as  the  actual  power  for 
evil  in  them  that  we  felt  as  a  deadly  wrong. 
Perhaps  the  most  immediate  and  efficient 
cause  of  mere  irritation  was  the  sudden 
and  unaccountable  change  of  manner  on  the 
other  side  of  the  water.  Only  six  months 
before,  the  Prince  of  Wales  had  come  over 
to  call  us  cousins  ;  and  everywhere  it  was 
nothing  but  "our  American  brethren," 
that  great  offshoot  of  British  institutions 
in  the  New  World,  so  almost  identical 
with  them  in  laws,  language,  and  litera- 
ture, —  this  last  of  the  alliterative  compli- 
ments being  so  bitterly  true,  that  perhaps 
it  will  not  be  retracted  even  now.  To  this 
16 


outburst  of  long-repressed  affection  we  re- 
sponded with  genuine  warmth,  if  with 
something  of  the  awkwardness  of  a  poor 
relation  bewildered  with  the  sudden  tight- 
ening of  the  ties  of  consanguinity  when  it 
is  rumored  that  he  has  come  into  a  large 
estate.  Then  came  the  Rebellion,  and, 
presto  !  a  flaw  in  our  titles  was  discovered, 
the  plate  we  were  promised  at  the  family 
table  is  flung  at  our  head,  and  we  were 
again  the  scum  of  creation,  intolerably  vul- 
gar, at  once  cowardly  and  overbearing,  — 
no  relations  of  theirs,  after  all,  but  a  dreggy 
hybrid  of  the  basest  bloods  of  Europe. 
Panurge  was  not  quicker  to  call  Friar  John 
his  former  friend.  I  cannot  help  thinking 
of  Walter  Mapes's  jingling  paraphrase  of 
Petronius,  — 

"  Dummodo  sim  splendidis  vestibus  ornatus, 
Et  multa  familia  sim  circumvallatus, 
Pruclens  sum  et  sapiens  et  morigeratus, 
Et  tuus  nepos  sum  et  tu  meus  cognatus,"  — 

which  I  may  freely  render  thus  :  — 

So  long  as  I  was  prosperous,  I 'd  dinners  by 
the  dozen, 

Was  well-bred,  witty,  virtuous,  and  everybody's 
cousin  ; 

If  luck  should  turn,  as  well  she  may,  her  fancy 
is  so  flexile, 

Will  virtue,  cousinship,  and  all  return  with 
her  from  exile? 

There  was  nothing  in  all  this  to  exasper- 
ate a  philosopher,  much  to  make  him  smile 
rather  ;  but  the  earth's  surface  is  not  chiefly 
inhabited  by  philosophers,  and  I  revive  the 
recollection  of  it  now  in  perfect  good-hu- 
mour, merely  by  way  of  suggesting  to  our 
ci-devant  British  cousins,  that  it  would 
have  been  easier  for  them  to  hold  their 
tongues  than  for  us  to  keep  our  tempers 
under  the  circumstances. 

The  English  Cabinet  made  a  blunder, 
unquestionably,  in  taking  it  so  hastily  for 
granted  that  the  United  States  had  fallen 
forever  from  their  position  as  a  first-rate 
power,  and  it  was  natural  that  they  should 
vent  a  little  of  their  vexation  on  the  people 
whose  inexplicable  obstinacy  in  maintain- 
ing freedom  and  order,  and  in  resisting 
degradation,  was  likely  to  convict  them  of 
their  mistake.  But  if  bearing  a  grudge  be 
the  sure  mark  of  a  small  mind  in  the  indi- 
vidual, can  it  be  a  proof  of  high  spirit  in 
a  nation  ?  If  the  result  of  the  present  es- 
trangement between  the  two  countries  shall 
be  to  make  us  more  independent  of  British 
twaddle  (Indomito  nee  dira  ferens  stipen- 
dia  Tauro),  so  much  the  better ;  but  if  it 
is  to  make  us  insensible  to  the  value  of 
British  opinion  in  matters  where  it  gives 
us  the  judgment  of  an  impartial  and  culti- 


242 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


vated  outsider,  if  we  are  to  shut  ourselves 
out  from  the  advantages  of  English  culture, 
the  loss  will  be  ours,  and  not  theirs.  Be- 
cause the  door  of  the  old  homestead  has 
been  once  slammed  in  our  faces,  shall  we 
in  a  huff  reject  all  future  advances  of  con- 
ciliation, and  cut  ourselves  foolishly  off 
from  any  share  in  the  humanizing  influen- 
ces of  the  place,  with  its  ineffable  riches  of 
association,  its  heirlooms  of  immemorial 
culture,  its  historic  monuments,  ours  no 
less  than  theirs,  its  noble  gallery  of  ances- 
tral portraits  ?  We  have  only  to  succeed, 
and  England  will  not  only  respect,  but,  for 
the  first  time,  begin  to  understand  us. 
And  let  us  not,  in  our  justifiable  indigna- 
tion at  wanton  insult,  forget  that  England 
is  not  the  England  only  of  snobs  who  dread 
the  democracy  they  do  not  comprehend, 
but  the  England  of  history,  of  heroes, 
statesmen,  and  poets,  whose  names  are 
dear,  and  their  influence  as  salutary  to  us 
as  to  her. 

Let  us  strengthen  the  hands  of  those  in 
authority  over  us,  and  curb  our  own 
tongues,  remembering  that  General  Wait 
commonly  proves  in  the  end  more  than  a 
match  for  General  Headlong,  and  that  the 
Good  Book  ascribes  safety  to  a  multitude, 
indeed,  but  not  to  a  mob,  of  counsellours. 
Let  us  remember  and  perpend  the  words 
of  Paulus  Emilius  to  the  people  of  Rome  ; 
that,  "  if  they  judged  they  could  manage 
the  war  to  more  advantage  by  any  other, 
he  would  willing  yield  up  his  charge  ;  but 
if  they  confided  in  him,  they  were  not  to 
make  themselves  his  colleagues  in  his  office, 
or  raise  reports,  or  criticise  his  actions, 
but,  without  talking,  supply  him  with 
means  and  assistance  necessary  to  the  car- 
rying on  of  the  war  ;  for,  if  they  proposed 
to-  command  their  own  commander,  they 
would  render  this  expedition  more  ridicu- 
lous than  the  former.'"  (  Vide  Plutarchum 
in  Vita  P.  E. )  Let  us  also  not  forget  what 
the  same  excellent  authour  says  concern- 
ing Perseus's  fear  of  spending  money,  and 
not  permit  the  covetousness  of  Brother 
Jonathan  to  be  the  good  fortune  of  Jeffer- 
son Davis.  For  my  own  part,  till  I  am 
ready  to  admit  the  Commander-in-Chief 
to  my  jmlpit,  I  shall  abstain  from  plan- 
ning his  battles.  If  courage  be  the  sword, 
yet  is  patience  the  armour  of  a  nation  ; 
and  in  our  desire  for  peace,  let  us  never  be 
willing  to  surrender  the  Constitution  be- 
queathed us  by  fathers  at  least  as  wise  as 
ourselves  (even  with  Jefferson  Davis  to 
help  us),  and,  with  those  degenerate  Ro- 
mans, tuta  et  presentia  quam  Vetera  et  pe- 
riculosa  malle. 

And  not  only  should  we  bridle  our  own 
tongues,  but  the  pens  of  others,  which  are 


swift  to  convey  useful  intelligence  to  the 
enemy.  This  is  no  new  inconvenience ; 
for,  under  date,  3d  June,  1745,  General 
Pepperell  wrote  thus  to  Governor  Shirley 
from  Louisbourg :  "  What  your  Excel- 
lency observes  of  the  army's  being  made 
acquainted  with  any  plans  proposed,  un- 
til ready  to  be  put  in  execution,  has  always 
been  disagreeable  to  me,  and  I  have  given 
many  cautions  relating  to  it.  But  when 
your  Excellency  considers  that  our  Coun- 
cil of  War  consists  of  more  than  twenty 
members,  I  am  persuaded  you  will  think  it 
impossible  for  me  to  hinder  it,  if  any  of 
them  will  persist  in  communicating  to  in- 
ferior officers  and  soldiers  what  ought  to 
be  kept  secret.  I  am  informed  that  the  Bos- 
ton newspapers  are  filled  with  paragraphs 
from  private  letters  relating  to  the  expe- 
dition. Will  your  Excellency  permit  me 
to  say  I  think  it  may  be  of  ill  consequence  ? 
Would  it  not  be  convenient,  if  your  Excel- 
lency should  forbid  the  Printers'  inserting 
such  news  ? "  Verily,  if  tempora  mutan- 
tur,  we  may  question  the  et  nos  mutamur 
in  Mis;  and  if  tongues  be  leaky,  it  will 
need  all  hands  at  the  pumps  to  save  the 
Ship  of  State.  Our  history  dotes  and  re- 
peats itself.  If  Sassycus  (rather  than  Al- 
cibiades)  find  a  parallel  in  Beauregard,  so 
Weakwash,  as  he  is  called  by  the  brave 
Lieutenant  Lion  Gardiner,  need  not  seek 
far  among  our  own  Sachems  for  his  anti- 
type. 
With  respect, 

Your  ob*  humble  servfc, 

Homer  Wilbur,  A.  M. 


I  love  to  start  out  arter  night 's  begun, 
An'  all  the  chores  about  the  farm  are 
done, 

The  critters  milked  an'  foddered,  gates 
shet  fast, 

Tools  cleaned  aginst  to-morrer,  supper 
past, 

An'   Nancy  damin'   by  her  ker'sene 
lamp,  — 

I  love,  I  say,  to  start  upon  a  tramp, 
To  shake  the  kinkles  out  o'  back  an' 
legs, 

An'  kind  o'  rack  my  life  off  from  the 

dregs 

Thet 's  apt  to  settle  in  the  buttery-hutch 
Of  folks  thet  foller  in  one  rut  too  much  : 
Hard  work  is  good  an'  wholesome,  past 

all  doubt; 
But  't  ain't  so,  ef  the  mind  gits  tuck- 
ered out. 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


243 


Now,  bein'  born  in  Middlesex,  you 
know, 

There 's  certin  spots  where  I  like  best 
to  go: 

The  Concord  road,  for  instance,  (I,  for 
one, 

Most  gin'lly  oilers  call  it  John  BulVs 
Run,) 

The  field  o'  Lexin'ton  where  England 
tried 

The  fastest  colours  thet  she  ever  dyed, 
An'  Concord  Bridge,  thet  Davis,  when 
he  came, 

Found  was  the  bee-line  track  to  heaven 
an'  fame, 

Ez  all  roads  be  by  natur',  ef  your  soul 
Don't  sneak  thru  shun-pikes  so 's  to 
save  the  toll. 

They  're  'most  too  fur  away,  take  too 

much  time 
To  visit  of  en,  ef  it  ain't  in  rhyme  ; 
But  the'  's  a  walk  thet 's  hendier,  a 

sight, 

An'  suits  me  fust-rate  of  a  winter's 
night,  — 

I  mean  the  round  whale's-back  o'  Pros- 
pect Hill. 

I  love  to  Titer  there  while  night  grows 
still, 

An'  in  the  twinklin'  villages  about, 
Fust  here,  then  there,  the  well-saved 

lights  goes  out, 
An'  nary  sound  but  watch-dogs'  false 

alarms, 

Or  muffled  cock-crows  from  the  drowsy 
farms, 

Where  some  wise  rooster  (men  act  jest 
thet  way) 

Stands  to 't  thet  moon-rise  is  the  break 
o'  day: 

(So  Mister  Seward  sticks  a  three -months' 
pin 

Where  the  war  'd  oughto  eend,  then 

tries  agin ; 
My  gran'ther's  rule  was  safer  'n 't  is  to 

crow : 

Don't  never  prophesy  —  onless  ye  know.) 
I  love  to  muse  there  till  it  kind  o'  seems 
Ez  ef  the  world  went  eddy  in'  off  in 
dreams ; 

The  northwest  wind  thet  twitches  at  my 
baird 

Blows  out  o'  sturdier  days  not  easy 
scared, 

An'  the  same  moon  thet  this  December 
shines 


Starts  out  the  tents  an'  booths  o'  Put- 
nam's lines ; 

The  rail-fence  posts,  acrost  the  hill  thet 
runs, 

Turn  ghosts  o'  sogers  should' rin'  ghosts 
o'  guns; 

Ez  wheels  the  sentry,  glints  a  flash  o' 
light, 

Along  the  firelock  won  at  Concord 
t  Fight, 

An',  'twixt  the  silences,  now  fur,  now 
nigh, 

Rings  the  sharp  chellenge,  hums  the 
low  reply. 

Ez  I  was  settin'  so,  it  warn't  long  sence, 
Mixin'  the  puffict  with  the  present 
tense, 

I  heerd  two  voices  som'ers  in  the  air, 
Though,  ef  I  was  to  die,  I  can't  tell 
where : 

Voices  I  call  'em:  't  was  a  kind  o' 
sough 

Like  pine-trees  thet  the  wind 's  ageth- 

'rin'  through ; 
An',  fact,  I  thought  it  was  the  wind  a 

spell, 

Then  some  misdoubted,  could  n't  fairly 
tell, 

Fust  sure,  then  not,  jest  as  you  hold  an 
eel, 

I  knowed,  an'  did  n't,  —  fin'lly  seemed 
to  feel 

'T  was  Concord  Bridge  a  talkin'  off  to 
kill 

With  the  Stone  Spike  thet 's  druv  thru 

Bunker  Hill ; 
Whether 't  was  so,  or  ef  I  on'y  dreamed, 
I  could  n't  say ;  I  tell  it  ez  it  seemed. 

THE  BRIDGE. 

Wal,  neighbor,  tell  us  wut  's  turned  up 
thet 's  new  ? 

You  're  younger  'n  I  be,  —  nigher  Bos- 
ton, tu: 

An'  down  to  Boston,  ef  you  take  their 
showin', 

Wut  they  don't  know  ain't  hardly  wuth 

the  knowin'. 
There 's  sunthin  goin'  on,  I  know :  las' 

night 

The  British  sogers  killed  in  our  gret 
fight 

(Nigh  fifty  year  they  hed  n't  stirred  nor 
spoke) 

Made  sech  a  coil  you 'd  thought  a  dam 
hed  broke : 


244 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


Why,  one  he  up  an'  beat  a  revellee 
With  his  own  crossbones  on  a  holler 
tree, 

Till  all  the  graveyards  swarmed  out  like 
a  hive 

AVith  faces  I  hain't  seen  sence  Seventy- 
five. 

Wut  is  the  news?    'T  ain't  good,  or 

they 'd  be  eheerin'. 
Speak  slow  an'  clear,  for  I 'm  some  hard 

o'  hearin'. 

THE  MONIMENT. 

I  don't  know  hardly  ef  it 's  good  or 
bad,  — 

THE  BRIDGE. 

At  wust,  it  can't  be  wus  than  wut  we  've 
had. 

THE  MONIMENT. 
You  know  them  envys  thet  the  Rebbles 
sent, 

An'  Cap'n  Wilkes  he  borried  o'  the 
Trent? 

THE  BRIDGE. 

Wut !  they  ha'n't  hanged  'em  ?  Then 

their  wits  is  gone ! 
Thet  ?s  the  sure  way  to  make  a  goose  a 

swan ! 

THE  MONIMENT. 

No:  England  she  would  hev  'em,  Fee, 

Faw,  Fum! 
(Ez  though  she  hed  n't  fools  enough  to 

home,) 

So  they 've  returned  'em  — 

THE  BRIDGE. 

Hev  they  ?    Wal,  by  heaven, 
Thet 's  the  wust  news  I  've  heerd  sence 

Seventy-seven ! 
By  George,  1  meant  to  say,  though  I 

declare 

It 's  'most  enough  to  make  a  deacon 
swear. 

THE  MONIMENT. 

Now  don't  go  off  half-cock  :  folks  never 
gains 

By  usin'  pepper-sarse  instid  o'  brains. 
Come,  neighbor,  you  don't  understand  — 

THE  BRIDGE. 

How  ?    Hey  ? 

Not  understand?    Why,  wut 's  to  hen- 
der,  pray? 


Must  I  go  huntin'  round  to  find  a  chap 
To  tell  me  when  my  face  hez  hed  a  slap  ? 

THE  MONIMENT. 

See  here :  the  British  they  found  out  a 
flaw 

In  Cap'n  Wilkes's  readin'  o'  the  law : 
(They  make  all  laws,  you  know,  an'  so, 
o'  course, 

It 's  nateral  they  should  understan'  their 
force :) 

He 'd  oughto  ha'  took  the  vessel  into  port, 
An'  hed  her  sot  on  by  a  reg'lar  court ; 
She  was  a  mail-ship,  an'  a  steamer,  tu, 
An'  thet,  they  say,  hez  changed  the 

pint  o'  view, 
Coz  the  old  practice,  bein'  meant  for 

sails, 

Ef  tried  upon  a  steamer,  kind  o'  fails ; 
You  may  take  out  despatches,  but  you 

mus'  n't 
Take  nary  man  — 

THE  BRIDGE. 

You  mean  to  say,  you  dus'  n't ! 
Changed  pint  o'  view !    No,  no,  —  it 's 
overboard 

With  law  an'  gospel,  when  their  ox  is 
gored ! 

I  tell  ye,  England's  law,  on  sea  an'  land, 
Hez  oilers  ben,  "I've  gut  the  heaviest 
hand." 

Take  nary  man?    Fine  preachin'  from 
her  lips  ! 

Why,  she  hez  taken  hunderds  from  our 
ships, 

An'  would  agin,  an'  swear  she  had  a 
right  to, 

Ef  we  warn't  strong  enough  to  be  perlite 
to. 

Of  all  the  sarse  thet  I  can  call  to  mind, 
England  doos  make  the  most  onpleasant 
kind  : 

It 's  you  're  the  sinner  oilers,  she 's  the 
saint ; 

Wut 's  good 's  all  English,  all  thet  is  n't 
ain't ; 

Wut  profits  her  is  oilers  right  an'  just, 
An'  ef  you  don't  read  Script ur  so,  you 
must ; 

She 's  praised  herself  ontil  she  fairly 
thinks 

There  ain't  no  light  in  Natur  when  she 
winks ; 

Hain't  she  the  Ten  Comman'ments  in 
her  pus  ? 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


245 


Could  the  world  stir  'thout  she  went,  tu, 
ez  nus  ? 

She  ain't  like  other  mortals,  thet 's  a 
fact : 

She  never  stopped  the  habus-corpus  act, 
Nor  specie  payments,  nor  she  never  yet 
Cut  down  the  int'rest  on  her  public 
debt ; 

She  don't  put  down  rebellions,  lets  'em 
breed, 

An'  's  oilers  willin'  Ireland  should  se- 
cede ; 

She 's  all  thet 's  honest,  honnable,  an' 
fair, 

An'  when  the  vartoos  died  they  made 
her  heir. 


THE  MONIMENT. 


Wal,  wal,  two  wrongs  don't  never  make 
a  right ; 

Ef  we  're  mistaken,  own  up,  an'  don't 
tight  : 

For  gracious'  sake,  ha'n't  we  enough  to 
du 

'thout  gettin'  up  a  fight  with  England, 
tu  ? 

She  thinks  we  're  rabble-rid — 

THE  BRIDGE. 

An'  so  we  can't 
Distinguish  'twixt  You  ought  nt  an' 

You  shc£  71  tl 
She  j edges  by  herself ;  she 's  no  idear 
How  't  stiddies  folks  to  give  'em  their 

fair  sheer : 
The  odds  'twixt  her  an'  us  is  plain 's  a 

steeple,  — 
Her  People 's  turned  to  Mob,  our  Mob 's 

turned  People. 

THE  MONIMENT. 

She 's  riled  jes'  now — 

THE  BRIDGE. 

Plain  proof  her  cause  ain't  strong,  — 
The  one*thet  fust  gits  mad 's  'most  oilers 
wrong. 

Why,  sence  she  helped  in  lickin'  Nap  the 
Fust, 

An'  pricked   a  bubble  jest  agoin'  to 
bust, 

"With  Rooshy,  Prooshy,  Austry,  all  as- 
sisting 

Th'  ain't  nut  a  face  but  wut  she 's  shook 
her  fist  in, 


Ez  though  she  done  it  all,  an'  ten  times 
more, 

An'  nothin'  never  hed  gut  done  afore, 
Nor  never  could  agin',  'thout  she  wuz 
spliced 

On  to  one  eend  an'  gin  th'  old  airth  a 
hoist. 

She  is  some  punkins,  thet  I  wun't  deny, 
(For  ain't  she  some  related  to  you  'n' 

1?> 

But  there 's  a  few  small  intrists  here 
below 

Outside  the  counter  o'  John  Bull  an' 
Co, 

An',  though  they  can't  conceit  how 't 

should  be  so, 
I  guess  the  Lord  druv  down  Creation's 

spiles 

'thout  no  gret  helpin'  from  the  British 
Isles, 

An'  could  contrive  to  keep  things  pooty 
stiff 

Ef  they  withdrawed  from  business  in  a 
miff; 

I  ha'  n't  no  patience  with  sech  swellin' 
fellers  ez 

Think  God  can't  forge  'thout  them  to 
blow  the  bellerses. 

THE  MONIMENT. 

You  're  oilers  quick  to  set  your  back 
aridge,  . 

Though 't  suits  a  tom-cat  more  'n  a 

sober  bridge  : 
Don't  you  git  het  :  they  thought  the 

thing  was  planned  ; 
They  '11  cool  off  when  they  come  to 

understand. 

THE  BRIDGE. 

Ef  thet 's  wut  you  expect,  you  '11  hcv 
to  wait  : 

Folks  never  understand  the  folks  they 
hate  : 

She  'll  fin'  some  other  grievance  jest  ez 
good, 

'fore  the  month 's  out,  to  git  misunder- 
stood. 

England  cool  off  !    She  '11  do  it,  ef  she 

sees 

She 's  run  her  head  into  a  swarm  o' 
bees. 

I  ain't  so  prejudiced  ez  wut  you  spose  : 
I  hev  thought  England  was  the  best 
thet  goes  ; 


246 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


Remember  (no,  you  can't),  when  /  was 
reared, 

God  save  the  King  was  all  the  tune  you 
heerd  : 

But  it  \s  enough  to  turn  Wachuset  roun' 
This  stumpin'  fellers  when  you  think 
they  're  down. 

THE  MOHIMENT. 

But,  neighbor,  ef  they  prove  their  claim 
at  law, 

The  best  way  is  to  settle,  an'  not  jaw. 
An'  don't  le'  's  mutter  'bout  the  awfle 
bricks 

"We  '11  give  'em,  ef  we  ketch  'em  in  a 
fix  : 

That  'ere 's  most  frequently  the  kin'  o' 
talk 

Of  critters  can't  be  kicked  to  toe  the 
chalk  ; 

Your   "You'll   see   nex'   time!"  an' 

"  Look  out  bumby  !  " 
'Most  oilers  ends  in  eatin'  umble-pie. 
'T  wun't  pay  to  scringe  to  England  : 

will  it  pay 
To  fear  that  meaner  bully,  old  "They  '11 

say  "  '( 

Suppose  they  du  say  :  words  are  dreffle 
bores, 

But  they  ain't  quite  so  bad  ez  seventy- 
fours. 

Wut  England  wants  is  jest  a  wedge  to 
fit 

Where  it  '11  help  to  widen  out  our  split  : 
She 's  found  her  wedge,  an'  't  ain't  for 

us  to  come 
An'  lend  the  beetle  thet's  to  drive  it 

home. 

For  growed-up  folks  like  us 't  would  be 
a  scandle, 

When  we  git  sarsed,  to  fly  right  off  the 
handle. 

England  ain't  all  bad,  coz  she  thinks  I  /  recollect  how  sailors'  rights  was  won, 
us  blind  :  Yard  locked  in  yard,  hot  gun-lip  kissin' 

Ef  she  can't  change  her  skin,  she  can  |        gun : 


THE  BRIDGE. 

I  'gree  to  thet  ;  she 's  nigh  us  to  wut 

France  is  ; 
But  then  she  '11  hev  to  make  the  fust 

advances  ; 

We 've  gut  pride,  tu,  an'  gut  it  by  good 
rights, 

An'  ketch  ine  stoopin'  to  pick  up  the 
mites 

0'  condescension  she  '11  be  lettin'  fall 
When  she  finds  out  we  ain't  dead  arter 
all! 

1  tell  ye  wut,  it  takes  more  'n  one  good 
week 

Afore  my  nose  forgits  it 's  hed  a  tweak. 

THE  MOXIMENT. 

She  '11  come  out  right  bumby,  thet  I  '11 
engage, 

Soon  ez  she  gits  to  seem'  we  're  of  age  ; 
This  talkin'  down  o'  hers  ain't  wuth 
a  fuss  ; 

It 's  nat'ral  ez  nut  likin'  't  is  to  us ; 
Ef  we  're  agoin'  to  prove  we  be  growed- 
up, 

'T  wunt  be  by  barkin'  like  a  tamer  pup, 
But  turnin'  to  an'  makin'   things  ez 
good 

Ez  wut  we  're  oilers  braggin'  that  we 
could ; 

We  're  bound  to  be  good  friends,  an'  so 

we 'd  oughto, 
In  spite  of  all  the  fools  both  sides  the 

water. 

THE  BRIDGE. 

I  b'lieve  thet 's  so ;  but  hearken  in  your 
ear,  — 

I  'm  older  'n  you,  —  Peace  wun't  keep 

house  with  Fear : 
Ef  you  want  peace,  the  thing  you 've 

gut  to  du 

Is  jes'  to  show  you  're  up  to  fightin',  tu. 


her  mind 

An'  we  shall  see  her  change  it  double- 
quick, 

Soon  ez  we 've  proved  thet  we  're  a-goin' 
to  lick. 

She  an'  Columby 's  gut  to  be  fas'  friends  : 
For  the  world  prospers  by  their  privit 
ends  : 

'T  would  put  the  clock  back  all  o'  fifty 
years 

Ef  they  should  fall  together  by  the  ears. 


Why,  afore  thet,  John  Bull  sot  up  thet 

"he 

Hed  gut  a  kind  o'  mortgage  on  the  sea; 
You 'd  thought  he  held  by  Gran'ther 

Adam's  will, 
An'  ef  you  knuckle  down,  he  '11  think 

so  still. 

Better  thet  all  our  ships  an'  all  their 

crews 

Should  sink  to  rot  in  ocean's  dreamless 
ooze, 


THE  BIGLO 

Each  torn  flag  wavin'  chellenge  ez  it 
went, 

An'  each  dumb  gun  a  brave  man's  nioni- 
ment, 

Than  seek  sech  peace  ez  only  cowards 
crave : 

Give  me  the  peace  of  dead  men  or  of 
brave ! 

THE  MONIMENT. 

I  say,  ole  boy,  it  ain't  the  Glorious 
Fourth  : 

You 'd  oughto  larned  'fore  this  wut  talk 

wuz  worth. 
It  ain't  our  nose  thet  gits  put  out  o' 

jint ; 

It 's  England  thet  gives  up  her  dearest 
pint. 

We 've  gut,  I  tell  ye  now,  enough  to  du 
In  our  own  fem'ly  fight,  afore  we  're 
thru. 

I  hoped,  las'  spring,  jest  arter  Sumter's 
shame, 

When  every  flag-staff  flapped  its  teth- 
ered flame, 

An'  all  the  people,  startled  from  their 
doubt, 

Come  must'rin'  to  the  flag  with  sech  a 
shout,  — 

I  hoped  to  see  things  settled  'fore  this 
fall, 

The  Rebbles  licked,  Jeff  Davis  hanged, 
an'  all ; 

Then  come  Bull  Run,  an'  sence  then 

I 've  ben  waitin' 
Like  boys  in  Jennooary  thaw  for  skatin', 
Nothin'  to  du  but  watch  my  shadder's 

trace 

Swing,  like  a  ship  at  anchor,  roun'  my 
base, 

With  daylight's  flood  an'  ebb :  it 's 

gittin'  slow, 
An'  I  'most  think  we 'd  better  let  'em  go. 
I  tell  ye  wut,  this  war 's  a-goin'  to 

cost  — 

THE  BRIDGE. 

An'  I  tell  you  it  wun't  be  money  lost ; 
Taxes  milks  dry,  but,  neighbor,  you  '11 
allow 

Thet  havin'  things  onsettled  kills  the 
cow : 

We 've  gut  to  fix  this  thing  for  good  an' 
all ; 

It 's  no  use  buildin'  wut 's  a-goin'  to  fall. 
I 'm  older  'n  you,  an'  I 've  seen  things 
an'  men, 


W  PAPERS.  247 

An'  my  experunce,  —  tell  ye  wut  it 's 
ben : 

Folks  thet  worked  thorough  was  the 

ones  thet  thriv, 
But  bad  work  follers  ye  ez  long 's  ye 

live ; 

You  can't  git  red  on  't ;  jest  ez  sure  ez 
sin, 

It 's  oilers  askin'  to  be  done  agin : 
Ef  we  should  part,  it  would  n't  be  a 
week 

'Fore  your  soft-soddered  peace  would 

spring  aleak. 
We 've  turned  our  cuffs  up,  but,  to  put 

her  thru, 

We  must  git  mad  an'  off  with  jackets, 
tu ; 

'T  wun't  du  to  think  thet  killin'  ain't 
peiiite,  — 

You 've  gut  to  be  in  airnest,  ef  you 
fight; 

Why,  two-thirds  o'  the  Rebbles  'ould 
cut  dirt, 

Ef  they  once  thought  thet  Guv'ment 

meant  to  hurt; 
An'  I  du  wish  our  Gin'rals  hed  in  mind 
The  folks  in  front  more  than  the  folks 

behind ; 

You  wun't  do  much  ontil  you  think  it 's 
God, 

An'  not  constitoounts,  thet  holds  the 
rod; 

We  want  some  more  o'  Gideon's  sword, 
I  jedge, 

For  proclamations  ha'n't  no  gret  of  edge  ; 
There  's  nothin'  for  a  cancer  but  the 
knife, 

Onless  you  set  by 't  more  than  by  your 
life. 

/'ve  seen  hard  times ;  I  see  a  war  begun 
Thet  folks  thet  love  their  bellies  never  'd 
won; 

Pharo's  lean  kine  hung  on  for  seven  long 
year ; 

But  when 't  was  done,  we  did  n't  count 
it  dear. 

Why,  law  an'  order,  honor,  civil  right, 
Ef  they  ain't  wuth  it,  wut  is  wuth  a 
fight? 

I 'm  older  'n  you :  the  plough,  the  axe, 
the  mill, 

All  kin's  o'  labor  an'  all  kin's  o'  skill, 
Would  be  a  rabbit  in  a  wile-cat's  claw, 
Ef 't  warn't  for  thet  slow  critter,  'stab- 

lished  law; 
Onsettle  thet,  an'  all  the  world  goes 

whiz, 


248 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


A  screw 's  gut  loose  in  everythin'  there 
is : 

Good  buttresses  once  settled,  don't  you 
fret 

An'  stir  'em;  take  a  bridge's  word  for 
thet ! 

Young  folks  are  smart,  but  all  ain't  good 
thet  's  new ; 

I  guess  the  gran'thers  they  knowed  sun- 
thin',  tu. 

THE  MONIMENT. 

Amen  to  thet !  build  sure  in  the  begin- 
nin': 

An'  then  don't  never  tech  the  underpin- 
nin' : 

Th'  older  a  guv'ment  is,  the  better 't 
suits ; 

New  ones  hunt  folks's  corns  out  like  new 
boots : 

Change  jes'  for  change,  is  like  them  big 
hotels 

Where  they  shift  plates,  an'  let  ye  live 
on  smells. 

THE  BRIDGE. 

Wal,  don't  give  up  afore  the  ship  goes 
down : 

It 's  a  stiff  gale,  but  Providence  wun't 
drown ; 

An'  God  wun't  leave  us  yit  to  sink  or 
swim, 

Ef  we  don't  fail  to  du  wut 's  right  by 
Him. 

This  land  o'  ourn,  I  tell  ye,  's  gut  to  be 
A  better  country  than  man  ever  see. 
1  feel  my  sperit  swellin'  with  a  cry 
Thet  seems  to  say,  "Break  forth  an' 

prophesy ! " 
O  strange  New  World,  thet  yit  wast 

never  young, 
Whose  youth  from  thee  by  gripin'  need 

was  wrung, 
Brown  foundlin'  o'  the  woods,  whose 

baby-bed 

Was  prowled  roun'  by  the  Injun's  crack  - 
lin'  tread, 

An'  who  grew'st  strong  thru  shifts  an' 

wants  an'  pains, 
Nussed  by  stern  men  with  empires  in 

their  brains, 
Who  saw  in  vision  their  young  Ishmel 

strain 

With  each  hard  hand  a  vassal  ocean's 
mane, 

Thou,  skilled  by  Freedom  an'  by  gret 
events 


To  pitch  new  States  ez  Old- World  men 

pitch  tents, 
Thou,  taught  by  Fate  to  know  Jehovah's 

plan 

Thet  man's  devices  can't  unmake  a  man, 
An'  whose  free  latch-string  never  was 

drawed  in 
Against  the  poorest  child  of  Adam's 

kin,  — 

The  grave 's  not  dug  where  traitor 

hands  shall  lay 
In  fearful  haste  thy  murdered  corse 

away  ! 
I  see  — 

Jest  here  some  dogs  begun  to  bark, 
So  thet  I  lost  old  Concord's  last  remark  : 
I  listened  long,  but  all  I  seemed  to  hear 
Was  dead  leaves  gossipin'  on  some  birch- 
trees  near  ; 
But  ez  they  hedn't  no  gret  things  to 
say, 

An'  sed  'em  often,  I  come  right  away, 
An',  walkin'  home'ards,  jest  to  pass  the 
time, 

I  put  some  thoughts  thet  bothered  me 

in  rhyme  ; 
I  hain't  hed  time  to  fairly  try  'em  on, 
But  here  they  be  —  it 's 


JONATHAN  TO  JOHN. 

It  don't  seem  hardly  right,  John, 
When  both  my  hands  was  full, 
To  stump  me  to  a  fight,  John,  — 
Your  cousin,  tu,  John  Bull ! 
Ole  Uncle  S.  sez  he,  "I  guess 
We  know  it  now,"  sez  he, 
"  The  lion's  paw  is  all  the  law, 
Accordin'  to  J.  B., 
Thet 's  fit  for  you  an'  me  ! " 

You  wonder  why  we  're  hot,  John  ? 

Your  mark  wuz  on  the  guns, 
The  neutral  guns,  thet  shot,  John, 
Our  brothers  an'  our  sons  : 
Ole  Uncle  S.  sez  he,  "  I  guess 
There 's  human  blood,"  sez  he, 
"By  fits  an'  starts,  in  Yankee  hearts, 
Though 't  may  surprise  J.  B. 
More  'n  it  would  you  an'  me." 

Ef  I  turned  mad  dogs  loose,  John, 
On  your  front-parlor  stairs, 

Would  it  jest  meet  your  views,  John, 
To  wait  an'  sue  their  heirs  ? 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


249 


Ole  Uncle  S.  sez  he,  "  I  guess, 
I  on'y  guess,"  sez  he, 
"  Thet  ef  Vattel  on  his  toes  fell, 
'T  would  kind  o'  rile  J.  B., 
Ez  wal  ez  you  an'  me!" 

Who  made  the  law  thet  hurts,  John, 

Heads  I  win,  —  ditto  tails  ? 
"  J.  B."  was  on  his  shirts,  John, 
Onless  my  memory  fails, 

Ole  Uncle  S.  sez  he,  "I  guess 
(I 'm  good  at  thet),"  sez  he, 
"  Thet  sauce  for  goose  ain't  jest  the 
juice 

For  ganders  with  J.  B., 

No  more  'n  with  you  or  me  ! " 

Whenr  your  rights  was  our  wrongs, 
John, 

You  did  n't  stop  for  fuss,  — 
Britanny's  trident  prongs,  John, 
Was  good  'nough  law  for  us. 
Ole  Uncle  S.  sez  he,  "  I  guess, 
Though  physic  's  good,"  sez  he, 
"  It  does  n't  toiler  thet  he  can  swaller 
Prescriptions  signed  'J.  2?.,' 
Put  up  by  you  an'  me  !  " 

We  own  the  ocean,  tu,  John  : 

You  mus'  n'  take  it  hard, 
Ef  we  can't  think  with  you,  John. 

It 's  jest  your  own  back-yard. 
Ole  Uncle  S.  sez  he,  "I  guess, 

Ef  thet 's  his  claim,"  sez  he, 
"The  fencin' -stuff '11  cost  enough 
To  bust  up  friend  J.  B., 
Ez  wal  ez  you  an'  me  ! " 

Why  talk  so  dreffle  big,  John, 

Of  honor  when  it  meant 
You  did  n't  care  a  fig,  John, 
But  jest  for  ten  per  cent  ? 

Ole  Uncle  S.  sez  he,  "I  guess 
He 's  like  the  rest,"  sez  he  : 
"  When  all  is  done,  it 's  number  one 
Thet 's  nearest  to  J.  B., 
'  Ez  wal  ez  t'  you  an*  me  \ " 

We  give  the  critters  back,  John, 

Cos  Abram  thought  't  was  right  ; 
It  warn't  your  bullyin'  clack,  John, 
Provokin'  us  to  fight. 

Ole  Uncle  S.  sez  he,  "I  guess 
We  Ve  a  hard  row,"  sez  he, 
"  To  hoe  jest  now  ;  but  thet  somehow, 
May  happen  to  J.  B., 
Ez  wal  ez  you  an'  me  ! " 


We  ain't  so  weak  an'  poor,  John, 

With  twenty  million  people, 
An'  close  to  every  door,  John, 
A  school-house  an'  a  steeple. 
Ole  Uncle  S.  sez  he,  44 1  guess, 
It  is  a  fact,"  sez  he, 
44  The  surest  plan  to  make  a  Man 
Is,  think  him  so,  J.  B., 
Ez  much  ez  you  or  me!" 

Our  folks  believe  in  Law,  John  ; 

An'  it 's  for  her  sake,  now, 
They 've  left  the  axe  an'  saw,  John, 
The  anvil  an'  the  plough. 

Ole  Uncle  S.  sez  he,  44 1  guess, 
Ef 't  warnt  for  law,"  sez  he, 
44  There 'd  be  one  shindy  from  here  to 
Indy; 

An'  thet  don't  suit  J.  B. 

(When 't  ain't  'twixt  you  an'  me!)" 

We  know  we 've  got  a  cause,  J ohn, 

Thet 's  honest,  just,  an'  true  ; 
We  thought 't  would  win  applause,  John, 
Ef  nowheres  else,  from  you. 
Ole  Uncle  S.  sez  he,  4  4 1  guess 
His  love  of  right,"  sez  he, 
4  4  Hangs  by  a  rotten  fibre  o'  cotton  : 
There 's  natur'  in  J.  B. , 
Ez  wal  ez  you  an'  me!" 

The  South  says,  4 4  Poor  folks  downl" 
John, 

An'  "All  men  up  /  "  say  we,  — 
White,  yaller,  black,  an'  brown,  John  : 
Now  which  is  your  idee  ? 

Ole  Uncle  S.  sez  he,  44 1  guess, 
John  preaches  wal,"  sez  he  ; 
44  But,  sermon  thru,  an'  come  to  du, 
Why,  there 's  the  old  J.  B. 
A  crowdin'  you  an'  me  !  " 

Shall  it  be  love,  or  hate,  John  ? 

It 's  you  thet 's  to  decide  ; 
Ain 't  your  bonds  held  by  Fate,  John, 
Like  all  the  world's  beside  ? 
Ole  Uncle  S.  sez  he,  44 1  guess 
Wise  men  forgive,"  sez  he, 
44  But  not  forget ;  an'  some  time  yet 
Thet  truth  may  strike  J.  B., 
Ez  wal  ez  you  an'  me  ! " 

God  means  to  make  this  land,  John, 

Clear  thru,  from  sea  to  sea, 
Believe  an'  understand,  John, 

The  wuth  o  bein'  free. 


250 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


Ole  Uncle  S.  sez  he,  "I  guess, 
God's  price  is  high,"  sez  he  ; 
"  But  nothin'  else  than  wut  He  sells 
Wears  long,  an'  thet  J.  B. 
May  larn,  like  you  an'  me  !  " 


No.  III. 

BIRDOFREDUM   SAWIN,    ESQ.,  TO 
MR.  HOSEA  BIGLOW. 

With  the  following  Letter  from  the  Rev- 
erend Homer  Wilbur,  A.  M. 

TO   THE   EDITORS   OF  THE  ATLANTIC 
MONTHLY. 

Jaalam,  7th  Feb.,  1862. 
Respected  Friends, —  If  I  know  my- 
self, —  and  surely  a  man  can  hardly  be 
supposed  to  have  overpassed  the  limit  of 
fourscore  years  without  attaining  to  some 
proficiency  in  that  most  useful  branch  of 
learning  (e  coslo  descendit,  says  the  pagan 
poet),  —  I  have  no  great  smack  of  that 
weakness  which  would  press  upon  the  pub- 
lick  attention  any  matter  pertaining  to  my 
private  affairs.  But  since  the  following 
letter  of  Mr.  Sawin  contains  not  only  a  di- 
rect allusion  to  myself,  but  that  in  connec- 
tion with  a  topick  of  interest  to  all  those 
engaged  in  the  publick  ministrations  of  the 
sanctuary,  I  may  be  pardoned  for  touching 
briefly  thereupon.  Mr.  Sawin  was  never 
a  stated  attendant  upon  my  preaching,  — 
never,  as  I  believe,  even  an  occasional  one, 
since  the  erection  of  the  new  house  (where 
we  now  worship)  in  1845.  He  did,  indeed, 
for  a  time,  supply  a  not  unacceptable  bass 
in  the  choir;  but,  whether  on  some  um- 
brage {omnibus  hoc  vitium  est  cantoribus) 
taken  against  the  bass-viol,  then,  and  till 
his  decease  in  1850  (cet.  77,)  under  the  charge 
of  Mr.  Asaph  Perley,  or,  as  was  reported 
by  others,  on  account  of  an  imminent  sub- 
scription for  a  new  bell,  he  thenceforth  ab- 
sented himself  from  all  outward  and  visible 
communion.  Yet  he  seems  to  have  pre- 
served (altd  mente  repostum),  as  it  were, 
in  the  pickle  of  a  mind  soured  by  prejudice, 
a  lasting  scunner,  as  he  would  call  it, 
against  our  staid  and  decent  form  of  wor- 
ship ;  for  I  would  rather  in  that  wise  in- 
terpret his  fling,  than  suppose  that  any 
chance  tares  sown  by  my  pulpit  discourses 
should  survive  so  long,  while  good  seed  too 
often  fails  to  root  itself.  I  humbly  trust 
that  I  have  no  personal  feeling  in  the  mat- 
ter ;  though  I  know  that,  if  we  sound  any 


man  deep  enough,  our  lead  shall  bring  up 
the  mud  of  human  nature  at  last.  The 
Bretons  believe  in  an  evil  spirit  which  they 
call  ar  c'houskezik,  whose  office  it  is  to 
make  the  congregation  drowsy ;  and  though 
I  have  never  had  reason  to  think  that  he 
was  specially  busy  among  my  flock,  yet 
have  I  seen  enough  to  make  me  sometimes 
regret  the  hinged  seats  of  the  ancient  meet- 
ing-house, whose  lively  clatter,  not  unwill- 
ingly intensified  by  boys  beyond  eyeshot 
of  the  tithing-man,  served  at  intervals  as  a 
wholesome  reveil.  It  is  true,  I  have  num- 
bered among  my  parishioners  some  who  are 
proof  against  the  prophylactick  fennel,  nay, 
whose  gift  of  somnolence  rivalled  that  of 
the  Cretan  Rip  Van  Winkle,  Epimenides, 
and  who,  nevertheless,  complained  not  so 
much  of  the  substance  as  of  the  length  of 
my  (by  them  unheard)  discourses.  Some 
ingenious  persons  of  a  philosophick  turn 
have  assured  us  that  our  pulpits  were  set 
too  high,  and  that  the  soporifick  tendency 
increased  with  the  ratio  of  the  angle  in 
which  the  hearer's  eye  was  constrained  to 
seek  the  preacher.  This  were  a  curious 
topick  for  investigation.  There  can  be  no 
doubt  that  some  sermons  are  pitched  too 
high,  and  I  remember  many  struggles  with 
the  drowsy  fiend  in  my  youth.  Happy 
Saint  Anthony  of  Padua,  whose  finny  aco- 
lytes, however  they  might  profit,  could 
never  murmur  !  Quare  fremuerunt  gentes  ? 
Who  is  he  that  can  twice  a  week  be  in- 
spired, or  has  eloquence  (ut  ita  dicam) 
always  on  tap?  A  good  man,  and,  next 
to  David,  a  sacred  poet  (himself,  haply, 
not  inexpert  of  evil  in  this  particular), 
has  said,  — 

"  The  worst  speak  something  good  :  if  all  want 
sense, 

God  takes  a  text  and  preacheth  patience." 

There  are  one  or  two  other  points  in  Mr. 
Sawin's  letter  which  I  would  also  briefly 
animadvert  upon.  And  first,  concerning 
the  claim  he  sets  up  to  a  certain  superiori- 
ty of  blood  and  lineage  in  the  people  of  our 
Southern  States,  now  unhappily  in  rebel- 
lion against  lawful  authority  and  their  own 
better  interests.  There  is  a  sort  of  opin- 
ions, anachronisms  at  once  and  anachor- 
isms,  foreign  both  to  the  age  and  the  coun- 
try, that  maintain  a  feeble  and  buzzing 
existence,  scarce  to  be  called  life,  like  win- 
ter flies,  which  in  mild  weather  crawl  out 
from  obscure  nooks  and  crannies  to  expati- 
ate in  the  sun,  and  sometimes  acquire  vigor 
enough  to  disturb  with  their  enforced  fa- 
miliarity the  studious  hours  of  the  scholar. 
One  of  the  most  stupid  and  pertinacious 
of  these  is  the  theory  that  the  Southern 
States  were  settled  by  a  class  of  emigrants 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


251 


from  the  Old  World  socially  superior  to 
those  who  founded  the  institutions  of  New 
England.  The  Virginians  especially  lay 
claim  to  this  generosity  of  lineage,  which 
were  of  no  possible  account,  were  it  not 
for  the  fact  that  such  superstitions  are 
sometimes  not  without  their  effect  on  the 
course  of  human  affairs.  The  early  adven- 
turers to  Massachusetts  at  least  paid  their 
passages ;  no  felons  were  ever  shipped 
thither  ;  and  though  it  be  true  that  many 
deboshed  younger  brothers  of  what  are 
called  good  families  may  have  sought  ref- 
uge in  Virginia,  it  is  equally  certain  that  a 
great  part  of  the  early  deportations  thither 
were  the  sweepings  of  the  London  streets 
and  the  leavings  of  the  London  stews.  It 
was  this  my  Lord  Bacon  had  in  mind  when 
he  wrote  :  "  It  is  a  shameful  and  unblessed 
thing  to  take  the  scum  of  people  and  wicked 
condemned  men  to  be  the  people  with  whom 
you  plant."  That  certain  names  are  found 
there  is  nothing  to  the  purpose,  for,  even 
had  an  alias  been  beyond  the  invention  of 
the  knaves  of  that  generation,  it  is  known 
that  servants  were  often  called  by  their 
masters'  names,  as  slaves  are  now.  On 
what  the  heralds  call  the  spindle  side,  some, 
at  least,  of  the  oldest  Virginian  families 
are  descended  from  matrons  who  were  ex- 
ported and  sold  for  so  many  hogsheads  of 
tobacco  the  head.  So  notorious  was  this, 
that  it  became  one  of  the  jokes  of  contem- 
porary playwrights,  not  only  that  men 
bankrupt  in  purse  and  character  were  "food 
for  the  Plantations  "  (and  this  before  the 
settlement  of  New  England),  but  also  that 
any  drab  would  suffice  to  wive  such  pitiful 
adventurers.  "  Never  choose  a  wife  as  if 
you  were  going  to  Virginia,"  says  Middle- 
ton  in  one  of  his  comedies.  The  mule  is 
apt  to  forget  all  but  the  equine  side  of  his 
pedigree.  How  early  the  counterfeit  no- 
bility of  the  Old  Dominion  became  a  topick 
of  ridicule  in  the  Mother  Country  may  be 
learned  from  a  play  of  Mrs.  Behn's,  found- 
ed on  the  Rebellion  of  Bacon  :  for  even 
these  kennels  of  literature  may  yield  a  fact 
or  two  to  pay  the  raking.  Mrs.  Flirt,  the 
keeper  of  a  Virginia  ordinary,  calls  herself 
the  daughter  of  a  baronet  "undone  in  the 
late  rebellion,"  —  her  father  having  in  truth 
been  a  tailor,  —  and  three  of  the  Council, 
assuming  to  themselves  an  equal  splendor 
of  origin,  are  shown  to  have  been,  one  "  a 
broken  exciseman  who  came  over  a  poor 
servant,"  another  a  tinker  transported  for 
theft,  and  the  third  "a  common  pick- 
pocket often  flogged  at  the  cart's  tail." 
The  ancestry  of  South  Carolina  will  as  lit- 
tle pass  muster  at  the  Herald's  Visitation, 
though  I  hold  them  to  have  been  more  rep- 
utable, inasmuch  as  many  of  them  were 


honest  tradesmen  and  artisans,  in  some 
measure  exiles  for  conscience'  sake,  who 
would  have  smiled  at  the  high-flying  non- 
sense of  their  descendants.  Some  of  the 
more  respectable  were  Jews.  The  absurd- 
ity of  supposing  a  population  of  eight  mil- 
lions all  sprung  from  gentle  loins  in  the 
course  of  a  century  and  a  half  is  too  mani- 
fest for  confutation.  But  of  what  use  to 
discuss  the  matter  ?  An  expert  genealogist 
will  provide  any  solvent  man  with  a  genus 
et  proavos  to  order.  My  Lord  Burleigh 
said  (and  the  Emperor  Frederick  II.  before 
him),  that  "nobility  was  ancient  riches," 
whence  also  the  Spanish  were  wont  to  cnll 
their  nobles  ricos  hombres,  and  the  aris- 
tocracy of  America  are  the  descendants  of 
those  who  first  became  wealthy,  by  what- 
ever means.  Petroleum  will  in  this  wise 
be  the  source  of  much  good  blood  among 
our  posterity.  The  aristocracy  of  the 
South,  such  as  it  is,  has  the  shallowest  of 
all  foundations,  for  it  is  only  skin-deep,  — 
the  most  odious  of  all,  for,  while  affecting 
to  despise  trade,  it  traces  its  origin  to  a 
successful  traffick  in  men,  women,  and 
children,  and  still  draws  its  chief  revenues 
thence.  And  though,  as  Doctor  Chaniber- 
layne  consolingly  says  in  his  Present  State 
of  England,  "to  become  a  Merchant  of 
Foreign  Commerce,  without  serving  any 
Apprentisage,  hath  been  allowed  no  dis- 
paragement to  a  Gentleman  born,  especial- 
ly to  a  younger  Brother,"  yet  I  conceive 
that  he  would  hardly  have  made  a  like  ex- 
ception in  favour  of  the  particular  trade  in 
question.  Oddly  enough  this  trade  reverses 
the  ordinary  standards  of  social  respecta- 
bility no  less  than  of  morals,  for  the  retail 
and  domestick  is  as  creditable  as  the  whole- 
sale and  foreign  is  degrading  to  him  who 
follows  it.  Are  our  morals,  then,  no  better 
than  mores  after  all  ?  I  do  not  believe  that 
such  aristocracy  as  exists  at  the  South  (for 
I  hold  with  Marius,  fortissimwn  quemque 
generosissimum)  will  be  found  an  element 
of  anything  like  persistent  strength  in  war, 
— thinking  the  saying  of  Lord  Bacon  (whom 
one  quaintly  called  inductionis  dominus  et 
Verulamii)  as  true  as  it  is  pithy,  that  "the 
more  gentlemen,  ever  the  more  books  of 
subsidies."  It  is  odd  enough  as  an  histori- 
cal precedent,  that,  while  the  fathers  of 
New  England  were  laying  deep  in  religion, 
education,  and  freedom  the  basis  of  a  pol- 
ity which  has  substantially  outlasted  any 
tli en  existing,  the  first  work  of  the  founders 
of  Virginia,  as  may  be  seen  in  Wingfield's 
Memorial,  was  conspiracy  and  rebellion, 
—  odder  yet,  as  showing  the  changes  which 
are  wrought  by  circumstance,  that  the  first 
insurrection  in  South  Carolina  was  against 
the  aristocratical  scheme  of  the  Proprietary 


252 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


Government.  I  do  not  find  that  the  artic- 
ular aristocracy  of  the  South  has  added 
anything  to  the  refinements  of  civilization 
except  the  carrying  of  bowie-knives  and  the 
chewing  of  tobacco,  —  a  high-toned  South- 
em  gentleman  being  commonly  not  only 
quadrumanous  but  quid  ruminant. 

I  confess  that  the  present  letter  of  Mr. 
Sawin  increases  my  doubts  as  to  the  sin- 
cerity of  the  convictions  which  he  pro- 
fesses, and  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  the 
triumph  of  the  legitimate  Government, 
sure  sooner  or  later  to  take  place,  will  find 
him  and  a  large  majority  of  his  newly 
adopted  fellow-citizens  (who  hold  with 
Daedalus,  the  primal  sitter-on-the-fence, 
that  medium  tenere  tutissimum)  original 
Union  men.  The  criticisms  towards  the 
close  of  his  letter  on  certain  of  our  failings 
are  worthy  to  be  seriously  perpended  ;  for 
he  is  not,  as  I  think,  without  a  spice  of 
vulgar  shrewdness.  Fas  est  et  ah  hoste 
doceri :  there  is  no  reckoning  without  your 
host.  As  to  the  good-nature  in  us  which 
he  seems  to  gird  at,  while  I  would  not  con- 
secrate a  chapel,  as  they  have  not  scrupled 
to  do  in  France,  to  Sotre  Dame  de  la 
Haine  (Our  Lady  of  Hate),  yet  I  cannot 
forget  that  the  corruption  of  good-nature 
is  the  generation  of  laxity  of  principle. 
Good-nature  is  our  national  characteristick ; 
and  though  it  be,  perhaps,  nothing  more 
than  a  culpable  weakness  or  cowardice, 
when  it  leads  us  to  put  up  tamely  with 
manifold  impositions  and  breaches  of  im- 
plied contracts,  (as  too  frequently  in  our 
publick  conveyances,)  it  becomes  a  positive 
crime,  when  it  leads  us  to  look  imresent- 
fully  on  peculation,  and  to  regard  treason 
to  the  best  Government  that  ever  existed 
as  something  with  which  a  gentleman  may 
shake  hands  without  soiling  his  fingers. 
I  do  not  think  the  gallows-tree  the  most 
profitable  member  of  our  Sylva  ;  but,  since 
it  continues  to  be  planted,  I  would  fain 
see  a  Northern  limb  ingrafted  on  it,  that  it 
may  bear  some  other  fruit  than  loyal  Ten- 
nesseeans. 

A  relick  has  recently  been  discovered  on 
the  east  bank  of  Bushy  Brook  in  North 
Jaalam,  which  I  conceive  to  be  an  inscrip- 
tion in  Runick  characters  relating  to  the 
early  expedition  of  the  Northmen  to  this 
continent.  I  shall  make  fuller  investiga- 
tions, and  communicate  the  result  in  due 
season. 

Respectfully, 

Your  obedient  servant, 

Homer  Wilbur,  A.  M. 

P.  S.  —  T  inclose  a  year's  subscription 
from  Deacon  Tinkham. 


I  hed  it  on  my  min'  las'  time,  when  I 

to  write  ye  started, 
To  tech  the  leadin'  featurs  o'  my  gittin' 

me  convarted; 
But,  ez  my  letters  hez  to  go  clearn  roun' 

by  way  o'  Cuby, 
'T  won't  seem  no  staler  now  than  then, 

by  th'  time  it  gits  where  you  be. 
You  know7  up  North,  though  sees  an' 

things  air  plenty  ez  you  please, 
Ther'  warn't  nut  one  on  'em  thet  come 

jes'  square  with  my  idees  : 
They  all  on  'em  wuz  too  much  mixed 

with  Covenants  o'  Works, 
An'  would  hev  answered  jest  ez  wal  for 

Afrikins  an'  Turks, 
Fer  where 's  a  Christian's  privilege  an' 

his  rewards  ensuin', 
Ef  't  ain' t  perfessin'  right  an  eend 

'thout  nary  need  o'  doin'  ? 
I  dessay  they  suit  workin' -folks  thet 

ain't  noways  pertie'lar, 
But  nut  your  Southun  gen'leraan  thet 

keeps  his  parpendie'lar  ; 
I  don't  blame  nary  man  thet  casts  his 

lot  along  o'  his  folks, 
But  ef  you  cal'late  to  save  me,  't  must 

be  with  folks  thet  is  folks  ; 
Cov'nants  o'  works  go  'ginst  my  grain, 

but  down  here  I  've  found  out 
The  true  fus'-fem'ly  A  1  plan,  —  here 's 

how  it  come  about. 
When  I  fus'  sot  up  with  Miss  S.,  sez  she 

to  me,  sez  she, 
"Without  you  git  religion,  Sir,  the 

thing  can't  never  be ; 
Nut  but  wut  I  respeck,"  sez  she,  "  your 

intellectle  part, 
But  you  wun't  noways  du  for  me  athout 

a  change  o'  heart : 
Nothun  religion  works  wal  North,  but 

it  's  ez  soft  ez  spruce, 
Compared  to  ourn,  for  keepin'  sound," 

sez  she,  "upon  the  goose  ; 
A  day's  experunce  'd  prove  to  ye,  ez 

easy  'z  pull  a  trigger, 
It  takes  the  Southun  pint  o'  view  to 

raise  ten  bales  a  nigger  ; 
You  '11  fin'  thet  human  natur',  South, 

ain't  wholesome  more  'n  skin-deep, 
An'  once 't  a  darkie 's  took  with  it,  he 

wun't  be  wuth  his  keep." 
"How  shell  I  git  it,  Ma'am?"  sez  I. 

"Attend  the  nex'  camp-rneetuV," 
Sez  she,  "an'  it  '11  come  to  ye  ez  cheap 

ez  onbleached  sheetin'." 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


253 


Wal,  so  I  went  along  an'  hearn  most  an 
impressive  sarmon 

About  besprinklin'  Afriky  with  fourth- 
proof  dew  o'  Harmon  : 

He  did  n't  put  no  weaknin'  in,  but  gin  it 
tu  us  hot, 

'Z  ef  he  an'  Satan 'd  ben  two  bulls  in 

one  five-acre  lot : 
I  don't  purtend  to  foller  him,  but  give 

ye  jes'  the  heads ; 
For  pulpit  ellerkence,  you  know,  'most 

oilers  kin'  o'  spreads. 
Ham's  seed  wuz  gin  to  us  in  chairge,  an' 

should  n't  we  be  li'ble 
In  Kingdom  Come,  ef  we  kep'  back 

their  priv'lege  in  the  Bible? 
The  cusses  an'  the  promerses  make  one 

gret  chain,  an'  ef 
You  snake  one  link  out  here,  one  there, 

how  much  on 't  ud  be  lef  ? 
All  things  wuz  gin  to  man  for 's  use,  his 

sarvice,  an'  delight  ; 
An'  don't  the  Greek  an'  Hebrew  words 

thet  mean  a  Man  mean  White  ? 
Ain't  it  belittlin'  the  Good  Book  in  all 

its  proudes'  featurs 
To  think  't  wuz  wrote  for  black  an' 

brown  an'  'lasses-colored  creaturs, 
Thet  could  n'  read  it,  ef  they  would, 

nor  ain't  by  lor  allowed  to, 
But  ough'  to  take  wut  we  think  suits 

their  naturs,  an'  be  proud  to  ? 
"Warn't  it  more  prof  table  to  bring  your 

raw  materil  thru 
"Where  you  can  work  it  inta  grace  an' 

inta  cotton,  tu, 
Than  sendin'   missionaries   out  where 

fevers  might  defeat  'em, 
An'  ef  the  butcher  did  n'  call,  their 

p'rishioners  might  eat  'em? 
An'  then,  agin,  wut  airthly  use  ?  Nor 

't  warn't  our  fault,  in  so  fur 
Ez  Yankee  skippers  would  keep  on  a- 

totin'  on  'em  over. 
'T  improved  the  whites  by  savin'  'em 

from  ary  need  o'  wurkin', 
An'  kep'  the  blacks  from  bein'  lost  thru 

idleness  an'  shirkin' ; 
We  took  to  'em  ez  nat'ral  ez  a  barn-owl 

doos  to  mice, 
An'  hed  our  hull  time  on  our  hands  to 

keep  us  out  o'  vice  ; 
It  made  us  feel  ez  pop'lar  ez  a  hen  doos 

with  one  chicken, 
An'  fill  our  place  in  "Natur's  scale  by 

givin'  'em  a  lickin' : 


For  why  should   Csesar  git  his  dues 

more  'n  Juno,  Pomp,  an'  Cuffy  ? 
It's  justifyin'  Ham  to  spare  a  nigger 

when  he  's  stuffy. 
Where 'd  their  soles  go  tu,  like  to  know, 

ef  we  should  let  'em  ketch 
Freeknowledgism   an'    Fourierism  an' 

Speritoolism  an'  sech'? 
When  Satan  sets  himself  to  work  to 

raise  his  very  bes'  muss, 
He  scatters  roun'  onscriptur'l  views  re- 
latin'  to  Ones'mus. 
You 'd  ough'  to  seen,  though,  how  his 

facs  an'  argymunce  an'  figgers 
Drawed  tears  o'  real  conviction  from  a 

lot  o'  pen' tent  niggers  ! 
It  warn't  like  Wilbur's  meetin',  where 

you  're  shet  up  in  a  pew, 
Your  dickeys  sorrin'  off  your  ears,  an' 

bilin'  to  be  thru ; 
Ther'  wuz  a  tent  clost  by  thet  hed  a  kag 

o'  sunthin'  in  it, 
Where  you  could  go,  ef  you  wuz  dry, 

an'  damp  ye  in  a  minute  ; 
An'  ef  you  did  dror  off  a  spell,  ther' 

wuz  n't  no  occasion 
To  lose  the  thread,  because,  ye  see,  he 

bellered  like  all  Bashan. 
It 's  dry  work  follerin'  argymunce  an' 

so,  'twix'  this  an'  thet, 
I  felt  conviction  weighin'  down  somehow 

inside  my  hat  ; 
It  growed  an'  growed  like  Jonah's  gourd, 

a  kin'  o'  whirlin'  ketched  me, 
Ontil  I  fin'lly  clean  gin  out  an'  owned 

up  thet  hed'  fetched  me  ; 
An'  when  nine  tenths  o'  th'  perrish 

took  to  tumblin'  roun'  an'  hollerin', 
I  did  n'  fin'  no  gret  in  th'  way  o'  turnin' 

tu  an'  follerin'. 
Soon  ez  Miss  S.  see  thet,  sez  she, 

"  Thet 's  wut  I  call  wuth  seein'  ! 
Thet 's  actin'  like  a  reas'nable  an'  in- 
tellects bein'  ! " 
An'  so  Ave  fin'lly  made  it  up,  concluded 

to  hitch  hosses, 
An'  here  I  be  'n  my  ellermunt  among 

creation's  bosses  ; 
Alter  I 'd  drawed  sech  heaps  o'  blanks, 

Fortin  at  last  hez  sent  a  prize, 
An'  chose  me  for  a  shinin'  light  o'  mis- 
sionary entaprise. 

This  leads  me  to  another  pint  on  which 

I 've  changed  my  plan 
0'  thinkin'  so  's  't  I  might  become  a 

straight-out  Southun  man. 


254 


THE  BTGLOW  PAPERS. 


Miss  S.  (her  maiden  name  wuz  Higgs,  o' 

the  fus'  fem'ly  here) 
On  her  Ma's  side  's  all  Juggernot,  on 

Pa's  all  Cavileer, 
An'  sence  I 've  merried  into  her  an' 

stept  into  her  shoes, 
It  ain't  more'n  nateral  tliet  I  should 

modderfy  my  views  : 
I 've  bon  a-readin'  in  Debow  ontil  I 've 

fairly  gut 

So  'nlightencd  thet  I 'd  full  ez  lives 

ha'  ben  a  Dook  ez  nut ; 
An'  when  we 've  laid  ye  all  out  stiff,  an' 

Jeff  hez  gnt  his  crown, 
An'  conies  to  pick  his  nobles  out,  ivunt 

this  child  be  in  town  ! 
We  '11  hev  an  Age  o'  Chivverlry  snr- 

passin'  Mister  Burke's, 
Where  every  fem'ly  is  fus'-best  an'  nary 

white  man  works  : 
Our  system's  sech,  the  thing '11  root  ez 

easy  ez  a  tater  ; 
For  while  your  lords  in  furrin  parts 

ain't  noways  marked  by  natur', 
Nor  sot  apart  from  ornery  folks  in  fea- 

turs  nor  in  figgers, 
Ef  ourn'll  keep  their  faces  washed,  you'll 

know  'em  from  their  niggers. 
Ain't  sech  things  wuth  secedin'  for,  an' 

gittin'  red  o'  you 
Thet  waller  in  your  low  idees,  an'  will 

till  all  is  blue  ? 
Fact  is,  we  air  a  diffrent  race,  an'  I, 

for  one,  don't  see, 
Sech  havin'  oilers  ben  the  case,  how 

w'  ever  did  agree. 
It 's  sunthin'  thet  you  lab'rin' -folks  up 

North  lied  ougn'  to  think  on, 
Thet  Etfggses  cant  bemean  themselves 

to  rulin'  by  a  Lineoln,  — 
Thet  men,  (an'  guv'nors,  tu,)  thet  hez 

sech  Normal  names  ez  Pickens, 
Accustomed  to  no  kin'  o'  work,  'thout 

't  is  to  givin'  liekins, 
Can't  masure  votes  with  folks  thet  get 

their  livins  from  their  farms, 
An'  prob'ly  think  thet  Law's  ez  goodez 

hevin'  coats  o'  arms. 
Sence  1  've  ben  here,  I 've  hired  a  chap 

to  look  about  for  me 
To  git  me  a  transplantable  an'  thrifty 

fem'ly-tree, 
An'  lie  tolls  me  the  Sawins  is  ez  much 

o'  Normal  blood 
Ez  Tiekens  an'  the  rest  on  'em,  an'  older 

'n  Noah's  Hood. 


Your  Normal  schools  wun't  turn  ye 

into  Normals,  for  it 's  clear, 
Ef  eddykatin'  done  the  thing,  they 'd 

be  some  skurcer  here. 
Pickenses,  Boggses,  Pettuses,  Magof- 

fins,  Letchers,  Polks,  — 
Where  can  you  scare  up  names  like 

them  among  your  mudsill  folks  ? 
Ther 's  nothin'  to  compare  with  em', 

you 'd  fin',  ef  you  should  glance, 
Among  the  tip-top  femerlies  in  Englau*, 

nor  in  France  : 
I 've  hearn  from  'sponsible  men  whose  - 

word  wuz  full  ez  good 's  their  note, 
Men  thet  can  run  their  face  for  drinks, 

an'  keep  a  Sunday  coat, 
That  they  wuz  all  on  'em  come  down, 

an'  come  down  pooty  fur, 
From  folks  thet,  'thout  their  crowns  wuz 

on,  ou'  doors  would  n'  never  stir, 
Nor  thet  ther'  warn't  a  Southun  man 

but  wut  wuz  primp  fashy 
0'  the  bes'  blood  in  Europe,  yis,  an' 

Afriky  an'  Ashy  : 
Sech  bein'  the  case,  is 't  likely  we  should 

bend  like  cotton  wickin', 
Or  set  down  under  anythin'  so  low-lived 

ez  a  lick  in'  ? 
More  'n  this,  —  hain't  we  the  literatoor 

an  science,  tu,  by  gorry  ? 
Hain't  we  them  intellectle  twins,  them 

giants,  Simms  an'  Maury, 
Each  with  full  twice  the  ushle  brains, 

like  nothin'  thet  I  know, 
'thout 't  wuz  a  double-headed  calf  I  see 

once  to  a  show  ? 

For  all  thet,  I  warn't  jest  at  fust  in  favor 

o'  secedin'  ; 
I  wuz  for  layin'  low  a  spell  to  find  out 

where  't  wuz  leadin', 
For  hevin'  South-Carliny  try  her  hand 

at  sepritnationin', 
She  takin  resks  an'  findin'  funds,  an' 

we  co-operationin',  — 
I  mean  a  kin'  o'  hangin'  roun'  an'  set- 
tin'  on  the  fence, 
Till  Prov'dunce  pinted  how  to  jump  an' 

save  the  most  expense  ; 
I  recollected  thet  'ere  mine  o'  lead  to 

Shiraz  Centre 
Thel  bust  upJabez  Pettibone,  an'  didn't 

want  to  ventur' 
'Fore  I  wuz  sartin  wut  come  out  ud  pay 

for  wut  went  in, 
For  swappin'  silver  off  for  lead  ain't  the 

sure  way  to  win  ; 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


255 


(An',  fact,  it  doos  look  now  ez  though  — 

but  folks  must  live  an'  larn  — 
We  should  git  lead,  an'  more  'n  we 

want,  out  o'  the  Old  Consarn  ; 
But  when  I  see  a  man  so  wise  an'  honest 

ez  Buchanan 
A-lettin'  us  hev  all  the  forts  an'  all  the 

arms  an'  cannon, 
Admittin'  we  wuz  nat'lly  right  an'  you 

wuz  nat'lly  wrong, 
Coz  you  wuz  lab' rin' -folks  an'  we  wuz 

wut  they  call  bong-tong, 
An'  coz  there  warn't  no  fight  in  ye 

more  'n  in  a  mashed  potater, 
"While  two  o'  its  can't  skurcely  meet  but 

wut  we  fight  by  natur', 
An'  th'  ain't  a  bar-room  here  would  pay 

for  openin'  on 't  a  night, 
Withorrt  it  giv  the  priverlege  o'  bein' 

shot  at  sight, 
Which  proves  we  're  Natur's  noblemen, 

with  whom  it  don't  surprise 
The  British  aristoxy  should  feel  boun' 

to  sympathize,  — 
Seein'  all  this,  an'  seem',  tu,  the  thing 

wuz  strikin'  roots 
While  Uncle  Sam  sot  still  in  hopes  thet 

some  one 'd  bring  his  boots, 
I  thought  th'  ole  Union's  hoops  wuz  off, 

an'  let  myself  be  sucked  in 
To  rise  a  peg  an'  jine  the  crowd  thet 

went  for  reconstructing  — 
Thet  is  to  hev  the  pardnership  under 

th'  ole  name  continner 
Jest  ez  it  wuz,  we  drorrin'  pay,  you 

findin'  bone  an'  sinner,  — 
On'y  to  put  it  in  the  bond,  an'  enter  't 

in  the  journals, 
Thet  you  're  the  nat'ral  rank  an'  file, 

an'  we  the  nat'ral  kurnels. 

Now  this  I  thought  a  fees'ble  plan,  thet 

'ud  work  smooth  ez  grease, 
Suitin'  the  Nineteenth  Century  an' 

Upper  Ten  idees, 
An'  there  I  meant  to  stick,  an'  so  did 

most  o'  th'  leaders,  tu,  . 
Coz  we  all  thought  the  chance  wuz  good 

o'  puttin'  on  it  thru  ; 
But  Jeff  he  hit  upon  a  way  o'  helpin'  on 

us  forrard 

By  bein'  unannermous,  —  a  trick  you 
ain't  quite  up  to,  Norrard. 

A  Baldin  hain't  no  more  'f  a  chance 
with  them  new  apple-corers 

Than  folks's  oppersition  views  aginst 
the  Ringtail  Roarers  ; 


They  '11  take  'em  out  on  him  'bout  east, 

—  one  canter  on  a  rail 
Makes  a  man  feel  unannermous  ez  Jonah 

in  the  whale  ; 
Or  ef  he's  a  slow-moulded  cuss  thet 

can't  seem  quite  t'  'gree, 
He  gits  the  noose  by  tellergraph  upon 

the  nighes'  tree  : 
Their  mission-work  with  Afrikins  hez 

put  'em  up,  thet 's  sartin, 
To  all  the   mos'   across-lot  ways  o' 

preachin'  an'  convartin'  ; 
I  '11  bet  my  hat  th'  ain't  nary  priest, 

nor  all  on  em  together, 
Thet  cairs  conviction  to  the  min'  like 

Reveren'  Taranfeather ; 
Why,  he  sot  up  with  me  one  night,  an' 

labored  to  sech  purpose, 
Thet  (ez  an  owl  by  daylight  'mongst  a 

flock  o'  teazin'  chirpers 
Sees  clearer  'n  mud  the  wickedness  o' 

eatin'  little  birds) 
I  see  my  error  an'  agreed  to  shen  it 

arterwurds  ; 
An'  I  should  say,  (to  jedge  our  folks  by 

facs  in  my  possession,) 
Thet  three 's  Unannermous  where  one's 

a  'Riginal  Secession  ; 
So  it 's  a  thing  you  fellers  North  may 

safely  bet  your  chink  on, 
Thet  we  're  all  water-proofed  agin  th' 

usurpin'  reign  o'  Lincoln. 

Jeff 's  some.    He 's  gut  another  plan 

thet  hez  pertic'lar  merits, 
In  givin'  things  a  cheerfle  look  an'  stiff- 

nin'  loose-hung  sperits  ; 
For  while  your  million  papers,  wut  with 

lyin'  an'  discussin', 
Keep  folks's  tempers  all  on  eend  a-fum- 

in'  an  a-fussin', 
A-wondrin'  this  an'  guessin'  thet,  an' 

dreadin'  every  night 
The  breechin'  o'  the  Univarse  '11  break 

afore  it 's  light, 
Our  papers  don't  purtend  to  print  on'y 

wut  Guv'ment  choose, 
An'  thet  insures  us  all  to  git  the  very 

best  o'  noose : 
Jeff  hez  it  of  all  sorts  an'  kines,  an' 

sarves  it  out  ez  wanted, 
So 's  't  every  man  gits  wut  he  likes  an* 

nobody  ain't  scanted  ; 
Sometimes  it 's  vict'ries  (they  're  'bout 

all  ther'  is  that 's  cheap  down  here,) 
Sometimes  it 's  France  an'  England  on 

the  jump  to  interfere. 


256 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


Fact  is,  the  less  the  people  know  o'  wut 

ther'  is  a-doin', 
The  hendier 't  is  for  Guv'ment,  sence  it 

henders  trouble  brewin'  ; 
An'  nooze  is  like  a  shinplaster,  —  it  's 

good,  ef  you  believe  it, 
Or,  wut 's  all  same,  the  other  man  thet 's 

goin'  to  receive  it  :  ' 
Ef  you 've  a  son  in  th'  army,  wy,  it 's 

comfortin'  to  hear 
He  '11  hev  no  gretter  resk  to  run  than 

seein'  th'  in'my's  rear, 
Coz,  ef  an  F.  F.  looks  at  'em,  they 

oilers  break  an'  run, 
Or  wilt  right  down  ez  debtors  will  thet 

stumble  on  a  dun, 
(An'  this,  ef  an'thin',  proves  the  wuth  o' 

proper  feni'ly  pride, 
Fer  sech  mean  shucks  ez  creditors  are 

all  on  Lincoln's  side) ; 
Ef  I  hev  scrip  thet  wun't  go  off  no 

more  'n  a  Bel gin  rifle, 
An'  read  thet  it 's  at  par  on  'Change,  it 

makes  me  feel  deli'fle  ; 
It  's  cheerin',  tu,  where  every  man  mus' 

fortify  his  bed, 
To  hear  thet  Freedom 's  the  one  thing 

our  darkies  mos'ly  dread, 
An'  thet  experunce,  time  'n'  agin,  to 

Dixie's  Land  hez  shown 
Ther'  's  nothin'  like  a  powder-cask  fer  a 

stiddy  corner-stone  ; 
Ain't  it  ez  good  ez  nuts,  when  salt  is 

sellin'  by  the  ounce 
For  its  own  weight  in  Treash'ry-bons, 

(ef  bought  in  small  amounts,) 
When  even  whiskey's  gittin'  skurce 

an'  sugar  can't  be  found, 
To  know  thet  all  the  ellerments  o'  lux- 
ury abound  ? 
An'  don't  it  glorify  sal' -pork,  to  come  to 

understand 
It 's  wut  the  Puchmon'  editors  call  fat- 
ness o'  the  land  ! 
Nex'  thing  to  knowin'  you  're  well  off 

is  nut  to  know  when  y'  ain't ; 
An'  ef  Jeff  says  all 's  goin'  wal,  who  '11 

ventur' t'  say  it  ain't  ? 

This  cairn  the  Constitooshun  roun'  ez 

Jeff  doos  in  his  hat 
Is  hendier  a  dreffle  sight,  an'  comes 

more  kin'  o'  pat. 
I  tell  ye  wut,  my  jedgment  is  you  're 

pooty  sure  to  fail, 
Ez  long  'z  the  head  keeps  turnin'  back 

for  counsel  to  the  tail  : 


Th'  advantiges  of  our  consarn  for  bein' 

prompt  air  gret, 
While,    'long  o'  Congress,  you  can't 

strike,  'f  you  git  an  iron  het ; 
They  bother  roun'  with  argooin',  an'  va- 

r'ous  sorts  o'  foolin', 
To  make  sure  ef  it 's  leg'lly  het,  an'  all 

the  while  it 's  coolin', 
So 's 't  when  you  come  to  strike,  it  ain't 

no  gret  to  wish  ye  j'y  on, 
An'  hurts  the  hammer  'z  much  or  more 

ez  wut  it  doos  the  iron, 
Jeff  don't  allow  no  jawin' -sprees  for  three 

months  at  a  stretch, 
Knowin'  the  ears  long  speeches  suits  air 

mostly  made  to  metch  ; 
He  jes'  ropes  in  your  tonguey  chaps  an' 

reg'lar  ten-inch  bores 
An'  lets  'em  play  at  Congress,  ef  they  '11 

du  it  with  closed  doors  ; 
So  they  ain't  no  more  bothersome  than 

ef  we' d  took  an'  sunk  'em, 
An'  yit  enj'y  th'  exclusive  right  to  one 

another's  Buncombe 
'thout  doin'  nobody  no  hurt,  an'  'thout 

its  costin'  nothin,' 
Their  pay  bein'  jes'  Confedrit  funds, 

they  findin'  keep  an'  clothin'  ; 
They  taste  the  sweets  o'  public  life,  an' 

plan  their  little  jobs, 
An'  suck  the  Treash'ry,  (no  gret  harm, 

for  it 's  ez  dry  ez  cobs,) 
An'  go  thru  all  the  motions  jest  ez  safe 

ez  in  a  prison, 
An'  hev  their  business  to  themselves, 

while  Buregard  hez  hisn  : 
Ez  long  'z  he  gives  the  Hessians  fits, 

committees  can't  make  bother 
'bout  whether 't 's  done  the  legle  way  or 

whether 't 's  done  the  t'other. 
An'  /  tell  you  you 've  gut  to  larn  thet 

War  ain't  one  long  teeter 
Betwixt  /  wan'  to  an'  '  T  wunt  du,  de- 

batin'  like  a  skeetur 
Afore  he  lights,  —  all  is,  to  give  the 

other  side  a  millin', 
An'  arter  thet 's  done,  th'  ain't  no  resk 

but  wut  the  lor  '11  be  willin'  ; 
No  metter  wut  the  guv'ment  is,  ez  nigh 

ez  I  can  hit  it, 
A  lickin'  's  constitooshunal,  pervidin' 

We  don't  git  it. 
Jeff  don't  stan'  dilly-dallyin',  afore  he 

takes  a  fort, 
(With  no  one  in,)  to  git  the  leave  o'  the 

nex'  Soopreme  Court, 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


257 


Nor  don't  want  forty-'leven  weeks  o' 

jawin'  an'  exponndin', 
To  prove  a  nigger  hez  a  right  to  save 

hira,  ef  he  's  drowndin' ; 
Whereas  ole  Abram 'd  sink  afore  he 'd 

let  a  darkie  boost  him, 
Ef  Taney  should  n't  come  along  an' 

hedn't  interdooced  him. 
It  ain't  your  twenty  millions  thet'll 

ever  block  Jeff's  game, 
But  one  Man  thet  wun't  let  'em  jog  jest 

ez  he 's  takin'  aim  : 
Your  numbers  they  may  strengthen  ye 

or  weaken  ye,  ez 't  heppens 
They  're  willin'  to  be  helpin'  hands  or 

wuss'n-nothin'  cap'ns. 

I 've  chose  my  side,  an'  't  ain't  no  odds 

ef  I  wuz  drawed  with  magnets, 
Or  ef  I  thought  it  prudenter  to  jine  the 

nighes'  bagnets  ; 
I  Ve  made  my  ch'ice,  an'  ciphered  out, 

from  all  I  see  an'  heard, 
Th'  ole  Constitooshun  never 'd  git  her 

decks  for  action  cleared, 
Long  'z  you  elect  for  Congressmen  poor 

shotes  thet  want  to  go 
Coz  they  can't  seem  to  git  their  grub  no 

otherways  than  so, 
An*  let  your  bes'  men  stay  to  home  coz 

they  wun't  show  ez  talkers, 
Nor  can't  be  hired  to  fool  ye  an'  sof- 

soap  ye  at  a  caucus,  — 
Long  'z  ye  set  by  Rotashun  more  'n  ye 

do  by  folks's  merits, 
Ez  though  experunce  thriv  by  change  o' 

sile,  like  corn  an'  kerrits,  — 
Long  'z  you  allow  a  critter's  "  claims" 

coz,  spite  o'  shoves  an'  tippins, 
He 's  kep'  his  private  pan  jest  where  't 

would  ketch  mos'  public  drippins',  — 
Long  'z  A.  '11  turn  tu  an'  grin'  B.'s  exe, 

ef  B.  '11  help  him  grin'  hisn, 
(An'  thet 's  the  main  idee  by  which  your 

leadin'  men  hev  risen,)  — 
Long  'z  you  let  ary  exe  be  groun','less 

't  is  to  cut  the  weasan' 
O'  sneaks  thet  dunno  till  they  're  told 

wut  is  an'  wut  ain't  Treason,  — 
Long  'z  ye  give  out  commissions  to  a  lot 

o'  peddlin'  drones 
Thet  trade  in  whiskey  with  their  men 

an'  skin  'em  to  their  bones,  — 
Long'z  ye  sift  out  "safe"  canderdates 

thet  no  one  ain't  afeard  on 
Coz  they  're  so  thund'rin'  eminent  for 

bein'  never  heard  on, 

17 


An'  hain't  no  record,  ez  it 's  called,  for 

folks  to  pick  a  hole  in, 
Ez  ef  it  hurt  a  man  to  hev  a  body  with 

a  soul  in, 

An'  it  wuz  ostentashun  to  be  showin' 

on 't  about, 
When  half  his  feller-citizens  contrive  to 

du  without,  — 
Long  'z  you  suppose  your  votes  can  turn 

biled  kebbage  into  brain, 
An'  ary  man  thet 's  pop'lar 's  fit  to  drive 

a  lightnin' -train, — 
Long  'z  you  believe  democracy  means 

I'm  ez  good  ez  you  be, 
An'  that  a  feller  from  the  ranks  can't  be 

a  knave  or  booby,  — 
Long  'z  Congress  seems  purvided,  like 

yer  street-cars  an'  yer  'busses, 
With  oilers  room  for  jes'  one  more  o' 

your  spiled-in-bakin'  cusses, 
Dough  'thout  the  emptins  of  a  soul,  an' 

yit  with  means  about  'em 
(Like  essence-peddlers  *)  thet  '11  make 

folks  long  to  be  without  'em, 
Jest  heavy  'nough  to  turn  a  scale  thet 's 

doubtfle  the  wrong  way, 
An'  make  their  nat'ral  arsenal  o'  bein' 

nasty  pay,— 
Long  'z  them  things  last,  (an'  I  don't 

see  no  gret  signs  of  improvin',) 
I  sha'  n't  up  stakes,  not  hardly  yit,  nor 't 

would  n't  pay  for  movin'  ; 
For,  'fore  you  lick  us,  it  '11  be  the 

long'st  day  ever  you  see. 
Yourn,  (ez  I  'xpec'  to  be  nex'  spring,) 
B.,  Markjss  o'  Big  Boosy. 


No.  IV. 

A  MESSAGE  OF    JEFF  DAVIS  IN 
SECRET  SESSION. 

Conjecturally  reported  by  H.  Biglow. 

TO    THE     EDITORS    OF     THE  ATLANTIC 
MONTHLY. 

Jaalam,  10th  March,  1862. 
Gentlemen,  —  My  leisure  has  been  so 
entirely  occupied  with  the  hitherto  fruit- 
less endeavour  to  decypher  the  Runick 
inscription  whose  fortunate  discovery  I 
mentioned  in  my  last  communication,  that 
I  have  not  found  time  to  discuss,  as  I  had 

*  A  rustic  euphemism  for  the  American  va- 
riety of  the  Mephitis.  H.  W. 


258 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


intended,  the  great  problem  of  what  we 
are  to  do  with  slavery,  —  a  topick  on 
which  the  pnbliek  mind  in  this  place  is  at 
present  more  than  ever  agitated.  What 
my  wishes  and  hopes  are  I  need  not  say, 
but  for  safe  conclusions  I  do  not  conceive 
that  we  are  yet  in  possession  of  facts 
enough  on  which  to  bottom  them  with 
certainty.  Acknowledging  the  hand  of 
Providence,  as  I  do,  in  all  events,  I  am 
sometimes  inclined  to  think  that  they  are 
wiser  than  we,  and  am  willing  to  wait  till 
we  have  made  this  continent  once  more  a 
place  where  freemen  can  live  in  security 
and  honour,  before  assuming  any  further 
responsibility.  This  is  the  view  taken  by 
my  neighbour  Habakkuk  Sloansure,  Esq., 
the  president  of  our  bank,  whose  opinion 
in  the  practical  affairs  of  life  has  great 
weight  with  me,  as  1  have  generally  found 
it  to  be  justified  by  the  event,  and  whose 
counsel,  had  I  followed  it,  would  have 
saved  me  from  an  unfortunate  investment 
of  a  considerable  part  of  the  painful 
economies  of  half  a  century  in  the  North- 
west-Passage Tunnel.  After  a  somewhat 
animated  discussion  with  this  gentleman, 
a  few  days  since,  I  expanded,  on  the  audi 
alteram  partem  principle,  something  which 
he  happened  to  say  by  way  of  illustration, 
into  the  following  fable. 

FESTINA  LENTE. 

Once  on  a  time  there  was  a  pool 
Fringed  all  about  with  flag-leaves  cool 
And  spotted  with  cow-lilies  garish, 
Of  frogs  and  pouts  the  ancient  parish. 
Alders  the  creaking  redwings  sink  on, 
Tussocks  that  house  blithe  Bob  o'  Lincoln 
Hedged  round  the  unassailed  seclusion, 
Where  muskrats  piled  their  cells  Carthusian  ; 
And  many  a  moss-embroidered  log, 
The  watering-place  of  summer  frog, 
Slept  and  decayed  with  patient  skill, 
As  watering-places  sometimes  wilL 

Now  in  this  Abbey  of  Theleme, 

Which  realized  the  fairest  dream 

That  ever  dozing  bull-frog  had, 

Sunned  on  a  half-sunk  lily-pad, 

There  rose  a  party  with  a  mission 

To  mend  the  polliwogs'  condition, 

Who  notified  the  selectmen 

To  call  a  meeting  there  and  then. 

"Some  kind  of  steps,"  they  said,  "  are  needed  ; 

They  don't  come  on  so  fast  as  we  did  : 

Let 's  dock  their  tails  ;  if  that  don't  make  'em 

Frogs  by  brevet,  the  Old  One  take  'em  ! 

That  boy,  that  came  the  other  day 

To  dig  some  flag-root  down  this  way, 

His  jack-knife  left,  and 't  is  a  sign 

That  Heaven  approves  of  our  design  : 

'T  were  wicked  not  to  urge  the  step  on, 

When  Providence  has  sent  the  weapon." 

Old  croakers,  deacons  of  the  mire, 
That  led  the  deep  batrachian  choir, 


Uk  !  Uk  !  Caronk  I  with  bass  that  might 
Have  left  Lablache's  out  of  sight, 
Shook  nobby  heads,  and  said,  "  No  go  ! 
You 'd  better  let  'em  try  to  grow  : 
Old  Doctor  Time  is  slow,  but  still 
He  does  know  how  to  make  a  pill." 

But  vain  was  all  their  hoarsest  bass, 
Their  old  experience  out  of  place, 
And  spite  of  croaking  and  entreating, 
The  vote  was  carried  in  marsh-meeting. 

"  Lord  knows,"  protest  the  polliwogs, 

"  We  're  anxious  to  be  grown-up  frogs  ; 

But  do  not  undertake  the  work 

Of  Nature  till  she  prove  a  shirk  • 

'T  is  not  by  jumps  that  she  advances, 

But  wins  her  way  by  circumstances  : 

Pray,  wait  awhile,  until  you  know 

We  're  so  contrived  as  not  to  grow  ; 

Let  Nature  take  her  own  direction, 

And  she  '11  absorb  our  imperfection  ; 

You  might  n't  like  'em  to  appear  with, 

But  we  must  have  the  things  to  steer  with." 

"No,"  piped  the  party  of  reform, 
"  All  great  results  are  ta'en  by  storm  ; 
Fate  holds  her  best  gifts  till  we  show 
We 've  strength  to  make  her  let  them  go  ; 
The  Providence  that  works  in  history, 
And  seems  to  some  folks  such  a  mystery, 
Does  not  creep  slowly  on  incog., 
But  moves  by  jumps,  a  mighty  frog  ; 
No  more  reject  the  Age's  chrism, 
Your  queues  are  an  anachronism  ; 
No  more  the  Future's  promise  mock, 
But  lay  your  tails  upon  the  block, 
Thankful  that  we  the  means  have  voted 
To  have  you  thus  to  frogs  promoted. " 

The  thing  was  done,  the  tails  were  cropped, 

And  home  each  philotadpole  hopped, 

In  faith  rewarded  to  exult, 

And  wait  the  beautiful  result. 

Too  soon  it  came  ;  our  pool,  so  long 

The  theme  of  patriot  bull-frog's  song, 

Next  day  was  reeking,  tit  to  smother, 

With  heads  and  tails  that  missed  each  other,  — 

Here  snoutless  tails,  there  tailless  snouts  ; 

The  only  gainers  were  the  pouts. 

MORAL. 

From  lower  to  the  higher  next, 
Not  to  the  top,  is  Nature's  text ; 
And  embryo  Good,  to  reach  full  stature, 
Absorbs  the  Evil  in  its  nature. 

I  think  that  nothing  will  ever  give  per- 
manent peace  and  security  to  this  conti- 
nent but  the  extirpation  of  Slavery  there- 
from, and  that  the  occasion  is  nigh ;  but  I 
would  do  nothing  hastily  or  vindictively, 
nor  presume  to  jog  the  elbow  of  Provi- 
dence. No  desperate  measures  for  me  till 
we  are  sure  that  all  others  are  hopeless,  — 
flectere  si  nequeo  superos,  Acheronta  tno- 
vebo.  To  make  Emancipation  a  reform 
instead  of  a  revolution  is  worth  a  little 
patience,  that  we  may  have  the  Border 
States  first,  and  then  the  non-slaveholders 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


259 


of  the  Cotton  States,  with  us  in  princi-  I 
pie,  —  a  consummation  that  seems  to  be  ! 
nearer  than  many  imagine.   Fiat  justitia, 
mat  caelum,  is  not  to  be  taken  in  a  literal 
sense  by  statesmen,  whose  problem  is  to 
get  justice  done  with  as  little  jar  as  possi- 
ble  to  existing  order,  which  has  at  least  so 
much  of  heaven  in  it  that  it  is  not  chaos. 
Oar  first  duty  toward  our  enslaved  brother 
is  to  educate  him,  whether  he  be  white  or 
black.    The  first  need  of  the  free  black  is  j 
to  elevate  himself  according  to  the  stand-  j 
ard  of  this  material  generation.    So  soon 
as  the  Ethiopian  goes  in  his  chariot,  he 
will  find  not  only  Apostles,  but  Chief 
.Priests  and  Scribes  and  Pharisees  willing 
to  ride  with  him. 

Nil  habet  infelix  paupertas  durius  in  se 
Quam  quod  ridiculos  homines  facit. 

I  rejoice  in  the  President's  late  Message, 
which  at  last  proclaims  the  Government 
on  the  side  of  freedom,  justice,  and  sound 
policy. 

As  I  write,  comes  the  news  of  our  disas- 
ter at  Hampton  Roads.  I  do  not  under- 
stand the  supineness  which,  after  fair 
warning,  leaves  wood  to  an  unequal  con- 
flict with  iron.  It  is  not  enough  merely 
to  have  the  right  on  our  side,  if  we  stick  ; 
to  the  old  flint-lock  of  tradition.  I  have 
observed  in  my  parochial  experience  {hand 
ignarus  mali)  that  the  Devil  is  prompt  to 
adopt  the  latest  inventions  of  destructive 
warfare,  and  may  thus  take  even  such  a  j 
three-decker  as  Bishop  Butler  at  an  ad-  j 
vantage.  It  is  curious,  that,  as  gunpowder 
made  armour  useless  on  shore,  so  armour 
is  having  its  revenge  by  baffling  its  old 
enemy  at  sea,  —  and  that,  while  gunpow- 
der robbed  land  warfare  of  nearly  all  its  ! 
picturesqueness  to  give  even  greater  state- 
liness  and  sublimity  to  a  sea-fight,  armour 
bids  fair  to  degrade  the  latter  into  a 
squabble  between  two  iron-shelled  turtles. 

Yours,  with  esteem  and  respect, 

Homer  Wilbur,  A.  M. 

P.  S.  —  I  had  wellnigh  forgotten  to  say 
that  the  object  of  this  letter  is  to  enclose 
a  communication  from  the  gifted  pen  of  j 
Mr.  Biglow. 


I  sent  you  a  messige,  my  Mens,  t'  other 
day, 

To  tell  you  I 'd  nothin'  pertickler  to 
say: 

't  wuz  the  day  our  new  nation  gut  kin' 
o'  stillborn, 


So 't  wuz  my  pleasant  dooty  t'  acknowl- 
edge the  com, 

An'  I  see  clearly  then,  ef  I  did  n't  be- 
fore, 

Thet  the  augur  in  inauguration  means 
bore. 

I  need  n't  tell  you  thet  my  messige  wuz 
written 

To  diffuse  correc'  notions  in  France  an' 

Gret  Britten, 
An'  agin  to  impress  on  the  poppylar 

mind 

The  comfort  an'  wisdom  o'  goin'  it 
blind,— 

To  say  thet  I  did  n't  abate  not  a  hooter 
0'  my  faith  in  a  happy  an'  glorious 
futur', 

Ez  rich  in  each  soshle  an'  p'litickle 
blessin' 

Ez  them  thet  we  now  hed  the  joy  o' 
possessin', 

With  a  people  united,  an'  longin'  to 
die 

For  wut  ice  call  their  country,  without 

askin'  why, 
An'  all  the  gret  things  we  concluded  to 

slope  for 

Ez  much  within  reach  now  ez  ever  —  to 
hope  for. 

We 've  gut  all  the  ellerments,  this  very 
hour, 

Thet  make  up  a  fus'-class,  self-govern- 
in'  power: 

We 've  a  war,  an'  a  debt,  an'  a  flag  ;  an' 
ef  this 

Ain't  to  be  inderpendunt,  why,  wut  on 
airth  is  • 

An'  nothin'  now  henders  our  takin'  our 
station 

Ez  the  freest,  enlightenedest,  civerlized 
nation, 

Built  up  on  our  bran' -new  poli tickle 
thesis 

Thet  a  Gov'ment's  fust  right  is  to  tum- 
ble to  pieces,  — 

I  say  nothin'  henders  our  takin'  our 
place 

Ez  the  very  fus'-best  o'  the  whole  human 
race, 

A  spittin'  tobacker  ez  proud  ez  you 

please 

On  Victory's  bes'  carpets,  or  loafin'  at 
ease 

In  the  Tool'ries  front-parlor,  discussin' 
affairs 

With  our  heels  on  the  backs  o'  Napo- 
leon's new  chairs, 


200  THE  BIGL( 

An*  princes  a-mixin'  our  cocktails  an' 
slings,  — 

Excep',  wal,  excep'  jest  a  very  few- 
things, 

Secli  ez  navies  an'  armies  an'  wherewith 
to  pay, 

An'  gittin'  our  sogers  to  run  t'  other 
way, 

An'  not  be  too  over-pertickler  in  tryin' 
To  hunt  up  the  very  las'  ditches  to  die 
in. 

Ther'  are  critters  so  base  thet  they  want 

it  explained 
Jes'  wut  is  the  totle  amount  thet  we 've 

gained, 

Ez  el'  we  could  maysure  stupendous 
events 

By  the  low  Yankee  stan'ard  o'  dollars 
an'  cents  : 

They  seem  to  forgit,  thet,  sence  last  year 
revolved, 

We 've  succeeded  in  gittin'  seceshed  an' 
dissolved, 

An'  thet  no  one  can't  hope  to  git  thru 

dissolootion 
'thout  some  kin'  o'  strain  on  the  best 

Constitootion. 
Who  asks  for  a  prospec'  more  flettrin' 

an'  bright, 
When  from  here  clean  to  Texas  it 's  all 

one  free  fight  ? 
Hain't  we  rescued  from  Seward  the  gret 

leadin'  featurs 
Thet  makes  it  wuth  while  to  be  reasonin' 

creaturs  ? 

Hain't  we  saved  Habus  Coppers,  im- 
proved it  in  fact, 

By  suspendin'  the  Unionists  'stid  o'  the 
Act? 

Ain't  the  laws  free  to  all  ?   Where  on 

airth  else  d'  ye  see 
Every  freeman  improvin'  his  own  rope 

an'  tree  ? 

Ain't  our  piety  sech  (in  our  speeches  an' 
messiges) 

Ez  t'  astonish  ourselves  in  the  bes'-com- 

posed  pessiges, 
An'  to  make  folks  thet  knowed  us  in 

th'  ole  state  o'  things 
Think  convarsion  ez  easy  ez  drink  in' 

gin-slings  ? 

It 's  ne'ssary  to  take  a  good  confident 
tone 

With  the  public  ;  but  here,  jest  amongst 
us,  I  own 


W  PAPERS. 

Things  look  blacker  'n  thunder.  Ther' 

's  no  use  denyin' 
We  're  clean  out  o'  money,  an'  'most  out 

o'  lyin'  ; 

Two  things  a  young  nation  can't  mennage 
without, 

Ef  she  wants  to  look  wal  at  her  fust 

com  in'  out  ; 
For  the  fust  supplies  physickle  strength, 

while  the  second 
Gives  a  morril  edvantage  thet 's  hard  to 

be  reckoned  : 
For  this  latter  I 'm  willin'  to  du  wut  I 

can  ; 

For  the  former  you  '11  hev  to  consult  on 
a  plan,  — 

Though  our  fust  want  (an'  this  pint  I 

want  your  best  views  on) 
Is  plausible  paper  to  print  I.  0.  U.s  on. 
Some  gennlemen  think  it  would  cure  all 

our  cankers 
In  the  way  o'  finance,  ef  we  jes'  hanged 

the  bankers  ; 
An'  I  own  the  proposle  'ud  square  with 

my  views, 

Ef  their  lives  wuz  n't  all  thet  we 'd  left 

'em  to  lose. 
Some  say  thet  more  confidence  might  be 

inspired, 

Ef  we  voted  our  cities  an'  towns  to  be 
fired,  — 

A  plan  thet  'ud  suttenly  tax  our  endur- 
ance, 

Coz 't  would  be  our  own  bills  we  should 

git  for  th'  insurance ; 
But  cinders,  no  metter  how  sacred  we 

think  'em, 
Might  n't  strike  furrin  minds  ez  good 

sources  of  income, 
Nor  the  people,  perhaps,  would  n't  like 

the  eclaw 

0'  bein'  all  turned  into  paytriots  by 
law. 

Some  want  we  should  buy  all  the  cotton 
an'  burn  it, 

On  a  pledge,  when  we 've  gut  thru  the 
war,  to  return  it,  — 

Then  to  take  the  proceeds  an'  hold  them 
ez  security 

For  an  issue  o'  bonds  to  be  met  at  ma- 
turity 

With  an  issue  o'  notes  to  be  paid  in  hard 
cash 

On  the  fus'  Monday  follerin'  the  'tarnai 

Allsmash  : 
This  hez  a  safe  air,  an',  once  hold  o'  the 

gold, 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS.  L  .  I 


Once  £n7  ironi  Tiir              ;    *•-  t  :"^t_ 

'    i  ■  rT=  7"  :V      _  '.          "  ~    i  '  I     '    f  ,Z  _  il  t.I    •  1  -.7 

1 : 1  : 

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Where  Floyd  cc^i  z:t  Li         v  i 

I:  -  :v  :  :,:  ':•-  :;.->  •-  7:1:75  :~ 

-..t;   :•-  zlz  1::::-.      -  :   ±2  -:,::.:i 

We  mnrf  git  amthin'  art  am  it  arte  it  "s 

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i  .:i7. 

.   •    .u-: '  "  .;'  t_  :  ~: :  7.  ::  r. zzti  :"•::: 

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Theta  hiSbsz  :xk  rli.^  -  —  ^ rr_ 

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;  .7  -.     .          •  .:::;:--7  7-  ;    :  .  :: 
:"-    ~   -•   7:i          7  L 

An  the  zh-ziz-Z          izz  n::r  zLzzzz'^ 

...    "  -               _  _     

- 

Wat  "s  c-til^i           7:1  see.  is  son-  Li>-= 

77:t  ~  -  ;  -T7    i  -  —  - . -  —   •       ■  • 

262  THE  BIGLO 

't  wuz  the  time  for  diffusin'  correc'  views 
abroad 

Of  our  union  an'  strength  an'  relyin'  on 
God; 

An',  fact,  when  I 'd  gut  thru  my  fust 
big  surprise, 

I  much  ez  half  b'lieved  in  my  own  tall- 
est lies, 

An'  conveyed  the  idee  thet  the  whole 

Southun  poppeiiace 
Wuz  Spartans  all  on  the  keen  jump  for 

Thermopperlies, 
Thet  set  on  the  Lincolnites'  bombs  till 

they  bust, 
An'  fight  for  the  priv'lege  o'  dyin'  the 

fust ; 

But  Roanoke,  Bufort,  Millspring,  an'  the 
rest 

Of  our  recent  starn-foremost  successes 
out  West, 

Hain't  left  us  a  foot  for  our  swellin'  to 

stand  on,  — 
We 've  showed  too  much  o'  wut  Buregard 

calls  abandon, 
For  all  our  Thermopperlies  (an'  it's  a 

marcy 

We  hain't  hed  no  more)  hev  ben  clean 
vicy-varsy, 

An'  wut  Spartans  wuz  lef  when  the  bat- 
tle wuz  done 

Wuz  them  thet  wuz  too  unambitious  to 
run. 

Oh,  ef  we  hed  on'y  jes'  gut  Reecognition, 
Things  now  would  ha'  ben  in  a  different 
position  ! 

You  'd  ha'  hed  all  you  wanted  :  the 
paper  blockade 

Smashed  up  into  toothpicks ;  unlim- 
ited trade 

In  the  one  thing  thet 's  needfle,  till  nig- 
gers, I  swow, 

Hed  ben  thicker  'n  provisional  shin- 
plasters  now  ; 

Quinine  by  the  ton  'ginst  the  shakes 
when  they  seize  ye  ; 

Nice  paper  to  coin  into  C.  S.  A.  specie  ; 

The  voice  of  the  driver 'd  be  heerd  in  our 
land, 

An'  the  univarse  scringe,  ef  we  lifted  our 
hand : 

Would  n't  thet  be  some  like  a  fulfillin'  the 

prophecies, 
With  all  the  fus'  fern' lies  in  all  the  fust 

offices  ? 

't  wuz  a  beautiful  dream,  an'  all  sorrer 
is  idle,  — 


W  PAPERS. 

But  ef  Lincoln  would  ha'  hanged  Mason 

an'  Slidell ! 
For  would  n't  the  Yankees  hev  found 

they  'd  ketched  Tartars, 
Ef  they'd  raised  two  sech  critters  as 

them  into  martyrs  ? 
Mason  wuz  F.  F.  V.,  though  a  cheap 

card  to  win  on, 
But  t'  other  was  jes'  New  York  trash  to 

begin  on  ; 

They  ain't  o'  no  good  in  European  pel- 
lices, 

But  think  wut  a  help  they 'd  ha'  ben  on 

their  gallowses  ! 
They 'd  ha'  felt  they  wuz  truly  fulfillin' 

their  mission, 
An',  oh,  how  dog-cheap  we 'd  ha'  gut 

Reecognition  ! 

But  somehow  another,  wutever  we 've 
tried, 

Though  the  the'ry 's  fust-rate,  the  facs 

wun't  coincide  : 
Facs  are  contrary  'z  mules,  an'  ez  hard 

in  the  mouth, 
An'  they  alius  hev  showed  a  mean  spite 

to  the  South. 
Sech  bein'  the  case,  we  hed  best  look 

about 

For  some  kin'  o'  way  to  slip  our  necks 
out : 

Le'  's  vote  our  las'  dollar,  ef  one  can  be 
found, 

(An',  at  any  rate,  votin'  it  hez  a  good 

sound,)  — 
Le'  's  swear  thet  to  arms  all  our  people 

is  flyin', 

(The  critters  can't  read,  an'  wun't  know 

how  we  're  lyin',)  — 
Thet  Toombs  is  advancin'  to  sack  Cin- 

cinnater, 

With  a  rovin'  commission  to  pillage  an' 
slahter,  — 

Thet  we 've  throwed  to  the  winds  all  re- 
gard for  wut 's  lawfle, 

An'  gone  in  for  sunthin'  promiscu'sly 
awfle. 

Ye  see,  hitherto,  it 's  our  own  knaves 
an'  fools 

Thet  we 've  used,  (those  for  whetstones, 

an' t'  others  ez  tools,) 
An'  now  our  las'  chance  is  in  puttin'  to 

test 

The  same  kin'  o'  cattle  up  North  an'  out 
West,  — 

Your  Belmonts,  Vallandighams,  Woods- 
es,  an'  sech, 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


263 


Poor  shotes  thet  ye  couldn't  persuade 
us  to  tech, 

Not  in  ornery  times,  though  we  're  will- 
in'  to  feed  'em 

"With  a  nod  now  an'  then,  when  we  hap- 
pen to  need  'em  ; 

Why,  for  my  part,  I  'd  ruther  shake 
hands  with  a  nigger 

Than  with  cusses  that  load  an'  don't 
darst  dror  a  trigger  ; 

They  're  the  wust  wooden  nutmegs  the 
Yankees  produce, 

Shaky  every wheres  else,  an'  jes'  sound 
on  the  goose  ; 

They  ain't  wuth  a  cuss,  an'  I  set  noth- 
in'  by  'em, 

But  we  're  in  sech  a  fix  thet  I  s'pose  we 
mus'  try  'em. 

I  —  But,  Gennlemen,  here 's  a  de- 
spatch jes'  come  in 

Which  shows  thet  the  tide 's  begun  turn- 
in'  agin',  — 

Gret  Cornfedrit  success !  C'lumbus 
eevacooated ! 

I  mus'  run  down  an'  hev  the  thing  prop- 
erly stated, 

An'  show  wut  a  triumph  it  is,  an'  how 
lucky 

To  fin'lly  git  red  o'  thet  cussed  Ken- 
tucky, — 

An'  how,  sence  Fort  Donelson,  winnin' 
the  day 

Consists  in  triumphantly  gittin'  away. 


No.  V. 

SPEECH  OF  HONOURABLE  PRE- 
SERVED DOE  IN  SECRET  CAU- 
CUS. 

TO     THE    EDITORS    OF     THE  ATLANTIC 
MONTHLY. 

Jaalam,  12th  April,  1862. 
Gentlemen,  —  As  I  cannot  but  hope 
that  the  ultimate,  if  not  speedy,  success  of 
the  national  arms  is  now  sufficiently  ascer- 
tained, sure  as  I  am  of  the  righteousness 
of  our  cause  and  its  consequent  claim  on 
the  blessing  of  God,  (for  I  would  not  show 
a  faith  inferior  to  that  of  the  Pagan  histo- 
rian with  his  Facile  evenit  quod  Dis  cordi 
est,)  it  seems  to  me  a  suitable  occasion  to 
withdraw  our  minds  a  moment  from  the 
confusing  din  of  battle  to  objects  of  peace- 
ful and  permanent  interest.    Let  us  not 


neglect  the  monuments  of  preterite  his- 
tory because  what  shall  be  history  is  so 
diligently  making  under  our  eyes.  Cras 
ingens  iterabimus  cequor;  to-morrow  will 
be  time  enough  for  that  stormy  sea  ;  to- 
day let  me  engage  the  attention  of  your 
readers  with  the  Runick  inscription  to 
whose  fortunate  discovery  I  have  hereto- 
fore alluded.  Well  may  we  say  with  the 
poet,  Multa  renascuntur  qucejam  cecidere. 
And  I  would  premise,  that,  although  I 
can  no  longer  resist  the  evidence  of  my 
own  senses  from  the  stone  before  me  to 
the  ante-Columbian  discovery  of  this  con- 
tinent by  the  Northmen,  gens  inclytissima, 
as  they  are  called  in  a  Palermitan  inscrip- 
tion, written  fortunately  in  a  less  debata- 
ble character  than  that  which  I  am  about 
to  decipher,  yet  I  would  by  no  means  be 
understood  as  wishing  to  vilipend  the 
merits  of  the  great  Genoese,  whose  name 
will  never  be  forgotten  so  long  as  the  in- 
spiring strains  of  "Hail  Columbia"  shall 
continue  to  be  heard.  Though  he  must  be 
stripped  also  of  whatever  praise  may  be- 
long to  the  experiment  of  the  egg,  which  I 
find  proverbially  attributed  by  Castilian 
authors  to  a  certain  Juanito  or  Jack, 
(perhaps  an  offshoot  of  our  giant-killing 
my  thus,)  his  name  will  still  remain  one  of 
the  most  illustrious  of  modern  times.  But 
the  impartial  historian  owes  a  duty  like- 
wise to  obscure  merit,  and  my  solicitude 
to  render  a  tardy  justice  is  perhaps  quick- 
ened by  my  having  known  those  who,  had 
their  own  field  of  labour  been  less  secluded, 
might  have  found  a  readier  acceptance 
with  the  reading  publick.  I  could  give  an 
example,  but  I  forbear  :  forsitan  nostris 
ex  ossibus  oritur  ultor. 

Touching  Runick  inscriptions,  I  find  that 
they  may  be  classed  under  three  general 
heads  :  1°.  Those  which  are  understood 
by  the  Danish  Royal  Society  of  Northern 
Antiquaries,  and  Professor  Rafn,  their 
Secretary ;  2°.  Those  which  are  compre- 
hensible only  by  Mr.  Rafn  ;  and  3°.  Those 
which  neither  the  Society,  Mr.  Rafn,  nor 
anybody  else  can  be  said  in  any  definite 
sense  to  understand,  and  which  accord- 
ingly offer  peculiar  temptations  to  enucle- 
ating sagacity.  These  last  are  naturally 
deemed  the  most  valuable  by  intelligent 
antiquaries,  and  to  this  class  the  stone 
now  in  my  possession  fortunately  belongs. 
Such  give  a  picturesque  variety  to  ancient 
events,  because  susceptible  oftentimes  of 
as  many  interpretations  as  there  are  indi- 
vidual archaeologists  ;  and  since  facts  are 
only  the  pulp  in  which  the  Idea  or  event- 
seed  is  softly  imbedded  till  it  ripen,  it  is 
of  little  consequence  what  colour  or  fla- 
vour we  attribute  to  them,  provided  it  be 


2G4 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


agreeable.  Availing  myself  of  the  oblig- 
ing assistance  of  Mr.  Arphaxad  Bowers, 
an  ingenious  photograph ick  artist,  whose 
house-on-wheels  has  now  stood  for  three 
years  on  our  Meeting-House  Green,  with 
the  somewhat  contradictory  inscription,  — 
"our  motto  is  onward,"  —  I  have  sent 
accurate  copies  of  my  treasure  to  many 
learned  men  and  societies,  both  native  and 
European.  I  may  hereafter  communicate 
their  different  and  {me  judice)  equally 
erroneous  solutions.  I  solicit  also,  Messrs. 
Editors,  your  own  acceptance  of  the  copy 
herewith  enclosed.  I  need  only  premise 
further,  that  the  stone  itself  is  a  goodly 
block  of  metamorphick  sandstone,  and 
that  the  Runes  resemble  very  nearly  the 
ornithichnites  or  fossil  bird-tracks  of  Dr. 
Hitchcock,  but  with  less  regularity  or 
apparent  design  than  is  displayed  by  those 
remarkable  geological  monuments.  These 
are  rather  the  non  bene  junctarum  dis- 
cordia  semina  rerum.  Resolved  to  leave 
no  door  open  to  cavil,  I  first  of  all  at- 
tempted the  elucidation  of  this  remarka- 
ble example  of  lithick  literature  by  the 
ordinary  modes,  but  with  no  adequate  re- 
turn for  my  labour.  I  then  considered 
myself  amply  justified  in  resorting  to  that 
heroick  treatment  the  felicity  of  which,  as 
applied  by  the  great  Bentley  to  Milton, 
had  long  ago  enlisted  my  admiration.  In- 
deed, I  had  already  made  up  my  mind, 
that,  in  case  good  fortune  should  throw 
any  such  invaluable  record  in  my  way,  I 
would  proceed  with  it  in  the  following 
simple  and  satisfactory  method.  After  a 
cursory  examination,  merely  sufficing  for 
an  approximative  estimate  of  its  length,  I 
would  write  down  a  hypothetical  inscrip- 
tion based  upon  antecedent  probabilities, 
and  then  proceed  to  extract  from  the  char- 
acters engraven  on  the  stone  a  meaning  as 
nearly  as  possible  conformed  to  this  a 
priori  product  of  my  own  ingenuity.  The 
result  more  than  justified  my  hopes,  inas- 
much as  the  two  inscriptions  were  made 
without  any  great  violence  to  tally  in  all 
essential  particulars.  I  then  proceeded, 
not  without  some  anxiety,  to  my  second 
test,  which  was,  to  read  the  Runick  letters 
diagonally,  and  again  with  the  same  suc- 
cess. With  an  excitement  pardonable 
under  the  circumstances,  yet  tempered 
with  thankful  humility,  I  now  applied  my 
last  and  severest  trial,  my  experimen turn 
cruris.  I  turned  the  stone,  now  doubly 
precious  in  my  eyes,  with  scrupulous  ex- 
actness upside  down.  The  physical  exer- 
tion so  far  displaced  my  spectacles  as  to 
derange  for  a  moment  the  focus  of  vision. 
I  confess  that  it  was  with  some  tremulous- 
ness  that  I  readjusted  them  upon  my  nose, 


and  prepared  my  mind  to  bear  with  calm- 
ness any  disappointment  that  might  ensue. 
But,  0  albo  dies  notanda  lap Mo !  what 
was  my  delight  to  rind  that  the  change  of 
position  had  effected  none  in  the  sense  of 
the  writing,  even  by  so  much  as  a  single 
letter !  I  was  now,  and  justly,  as  I  think, 
satisfied  of  the  conscientious  exactness  of 
my  interpretation.    It  is  as  follows  :  — 

HERE 

BJARNA  GRIMOLFSSOJT 
FIRST  DRANK  CLOUD-BROTHER 
THROUGH  CHILD-OF-LAND-AND- 
WATER : 

that  is,  drew  smoke  through  a  reed  stem. 
In  other  words,  we  have  here  a  record  of 
the  first  smoking  of  the  herb  Nicotiana 
Tabacum  by  an  European  on  this  conti- 
nent. The  probable  results  of  this  discov- 
ery are  so  vast  as  to  baffle  conjecture.  If 
it  be  objected,  that  the  smoking  of  a  pipe 
would  hardly  justify  the  setting  up  of  a 
memorial  stone,  I  answer,  that  even  now 
the  Moquis  Indian,  ere  he  takes  his  first 
whiff,  bows  reverently  toward  the  four 
quarters  of  the  sky  in  succession,  and  that 
the  loftiest  monuments  have  been  reared 
to  perpetuate  fame,  which  is  the  dream  of 
the  shadow  of  smoke.  The  Saga,  it  will 
be  remembered,  leaves  this  Bjarna  to  a 
fate  something  like  that  of  Sir  Humphrey 
Gilbert,  on  board  a  sinking  ship  in  the 
"  wormy  sea,"  having  generously  given  up 
his  place  in  the  boat  to  a  certain  Ice- 
lander. It  is  doubly  pleasant,  therefore, 
to  meet  with  this  proof  that  the  brave 
old  man  arrived  safely  in  Vinland,  and 
that  his  declining  years  were  cheered  by 
the  respectful  attentions  of  the  dusky 
denizens  of  our  then  uninvaded  forests. 
Most  of  all  was  I  gratified,  however,  in 
thus  linking  forever  the  name  of  my  na- 
tive town  with  one  of  the  most  momentous 
occurrences  of  modern  times.  Hitherto 
Jaalam,  though  in  soil,  climate,  and  geo- 
graphical position  as  highly  qualified  to 
be  the  theatre  of  remarkable  historical  in- 
cidents as  any  spot  on  the  earth's  surface, 
has  been,  if  I  may  say  it  without  seeming 
to  question  the  wisdom  of  Providence, 
almost  maliciously  neglected,  as  it  might 
appear,  by  occurrences  of  world-wide  in- 
terest in  want  of  a  situation.  And  in 
matters  of  this  nature  it  must  be  confessed 
that  adequate  events  are  as  necessary  as 
the  vates  sacer  to  record  them.  Jaalam 
stood  always  modestly  ready,  but  circum- 
stances made  no  fitting  response  to  her 
generous  intentions.    Now,  however,  she 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


265 


assumes  her  place  on  the  historick  roll. 
I  have  hitherto  been  a  zealous  opponent 
of  the  Circean  herb,  but  I  shall  now  re- 
examine the  question  without  bias. 

I  am  aware  that  the  Rev.  Jonas  Tutchel, 
in  a  recent  communication  to  the  Bogus 
Four  Corners  Weekly  Meridian,  has  en- 
deavored to  show  that  this  is  the  sepul- 
chral inscription  of  Thorwald  Eriksson, 
who,  as  is  well  known,  was  slain  in  Vinland 
by  the  natives.  But  I  think  he  has  been 
misled  by  a  preconceived  theory,  and  can- 
not but  feel  that  he  has  thus  made  an  un- 
gracious return  for  my  allowing  him  to 
inspect  the  stone  with  the  aid  of  my  own 
glasses  (he  having  by  accident  left  his  at 
home)  and  in  my  own  study.  The  heathen 
ancients  anight  have  instructed  this  Chris- 
tian minister  in  the  rites  of  hospitality  ; 
but  much  is  to  be  pardoned  to  the  spirit 
of  self-love.  He  must  indeed  be  ingenious 
who  can  make  out  the  words  her  hvilir 
from  any  characters  in  the  inscription  in 
question,  which,  whatever  else  it  may  be, 
is  certainly  not  mortuary.  And  even  should 
the  reverend  gentleman  succeed  in  persuad- 
ing some  fantastical  wits  of  the  soundness 
of  his  views,  I  do  not  see  what  useful  end 
he  will  have  gained.  For  if  the  English 
Courts  of  Law  hold  the  testimony  of  grave- 
stones from  the  burial-grounds  of  Protes- 
tant dissenters  to  be  questionable,  even 
where  it  is  essential  in  proving  a  descent, 
I  cannot  conceive  that  the  epitaphial  as- 
sertions of  heathens  should  be  esteemed  of 
more  authority  by  any  man  of  orthodox 
sentiments. 

At  this  moment,  happening  to  cast  my 
eyes  upon  the  stone,  whose  characters  a 
transverse  light  from  my  southern  window 
brings  out  with  singular  distinctness,  an- 
other interpretation  has  occurred  to  me, 
promising  even  more  interesting  results. 
I  hasten  to  close  my  letter  in  order  to  fol- 
low at  once  the  clew  thus  providentially 
suggested. 

I  inclose,  as  usual,  a  contribution  from 
Mr.  Biglow,  and  remain, 
Gentlemen,  with  esteem  and  respect, 
Your  Obedient  Humble  Servant, 

Homer  Wilbur,  A.  M. 


I  thank  ye,  my  friens,  for  the  warmth 

o'  your  greetin' : 
Ther'  's  few  airthly  blessins  but  wut 's 

vain  an'  fleetin' ; 
But  ef  ther'  is  one  thet  hain't  no  cracks 

an'  flaws, 

An'  is  wuth  goin'  in  for,  it 's  pop'lar 
applause  ; 


It  sends  up  the  sperits  ez  lively  ez 
rockets, 

An'  I  feel  it  —  wal,  down  to  the  eend  o' 

my  pockets. 
Jes'  lovin'  the  people  is  Canaan  in 

view, 

But  it  's  Canaan  paid  quarterly  t'  hev 

'em  love  you  ; 
It 's  a  blessin'  thet 's  breakin'  out  ollus 

in  fresh  spots  ; 
It 's  a-follerin'  Moses  'thout  losin'  the 

flesh-pots. 

But,  Gennlemen,  'scuse  me,  I  ain't  sech 
a  raw  cus 

Ez  to  go  luggin'  ellerkence  into  a  cau- 
cus, — 

Thet  is,  into  one  where  the  call  compre- 
hends 

Nut  the  People  in  person,  but  on'y  their 
friends  ; 

I 'm  so  kin'  o'  used  to  convincin'  the 

masses 

Of  th'  edvantage  o'  bein'  self-go vernin' 

asses, 

I  forgut  thet  ive  're  all  o'  the  sort  thet 
pull  wires 

An'  arrange  for  the  public  their  wants 

an'  desires, 
An'  thet  wut  we  hed  met  for  wuz  jes'  to 

agree 

Wut  the  People's  opinions  in  futur'  should 
be. 

Now,  to  come  to  the  nub,  we  've  ben 

all  disappinted, 
An'  our  leadin'  idees  are  a  kind  o'  dis- 

j  in  ted,  — 

Though,  fur  ez  the  nateral  man  could 
discern, 

Things  ough'  to  ha'  took  most  an  opper- 
site  turn. 

But  The'ry  is  jes'  like  a  train  on  the 
rail, 

Thet,  weather  or  no,  puts  her  thru  with- 
out fail, 

While  Fac'  's  the  ole  stage  thet  gits 

sloughed  in  the  ruts, 
An'  hez  to  allow  for  your  darned  efs  an' 

buts, 

An'  so,  nut  intendin'  no  pers'nal  reflec- 
tions, 

They  don't — don't  nut  alius,  thet  is, — 

make  connections : 
Sometimes,  when  it  really  doos  seem 

thet  they 'd  oughter 
Combine  jest  ez  kindly  ez  new  rum  an' 

water, 


266  THE  BIGL( 

Both  '11  be  jest  ez  sot  in  their  ways  ez  a 
bagnet, 

Ez  otherwise-minded  ez  th*  eends  of  a 
magnet, 

An'  folks  like  you  'n'  me,  thet  ain't  ept 

to  be  sold, 
Git  somehow  or  'nother  left  out  in  the 

cold. 

I  expected  'fore  this,  'thout  no  gret  of  a 
row, 

Jeff  D.  would  ha'  ben  where  A.  Lincoln 
is  now, 

With  Taney  to  say  't  wuz  all  legle  an' 
fair, 

An'  a  jury  o'  Deemocrats  ready  to 
swear 

Thet  the  ingin  o'  State  gut  throwed  into 
the  ditch 

By  the  fault  o'  the  North  in  misplacin' 
the  switch. 

Things  wuz  ripenin'  fust-rate  with 
Buchanan  to  nuss  'em ; 

But  the  People  they  would  n't  be  Mex- 
icans, cuss  'em ! 

Ain't  the  safeguards  o'  freedom  upsot,  'z 
you  may  say, 

Ef  the  right  o'  rev'lution  is  took  clean 
away  ? 

An'  doos  n't  the  right  primy-fashy  in- 
clude 

The  bein'  entitled  to  nut  be  sub- 
dued ? 

The  fact  is,  we 'd  gone  for  the  Union  so 
strong, 

When  Union  meant  South  ollus  right 

an'  North  wrong, 
Thet  the  people  gut  fooled  into  thinkin' 

it  might 

Worry  on  middlin'  wal  with  the  North 

in  the  right. 
We  might  ha'  ben  now  jest  ez  prosp'rous 

ez  France, 

Where  p'litikle  enterprise  hez  a  fair 
chance, 

An'  the  people  is  heppy  an'  proud  et  this 
hour, 

Long  ez  they  hev  the  votes,  to  let  Nap 

hev  the  power  ; 
But  our  folks  they  went  an'  believed 

wut  we 'd  told  'em, 
An',  the  flag  once  insulted,  no  mortle 

could  hold  'em. 
'T  wuz  pervokin'  jest  when  we  wuz  cer- 

t'in  to  win,  — 
An'  I,  for  one,  wun't  trust  the  masses 

agin  : 


m  PAPERS. 

For  a  people  thet  knows  much  ain't  fit 

to  be  free 

In  the  self-cockin',  back-action  style  o' 
J.  D. 

I  can't  believe  now  but  wut  half  on 't  is 
lies ; 

For  who 'd  thought  the  North  wuz  a- 

goin'  to  rise, 
Or  take   the  pervokin'est  kin'  of  a 

stump, 

'thout  't  wuz   sunthin'  ez  pressin'  ez 

Gabr'el's  las'  trump? 
Or  who 'd  ha'  supposed,  arter  sech  swell 

an'  bluster 
'bout   the    lick-ary-ten-on-ye  fighters 

they  'd  muster, 
Raised  by  hand  on  briled  lightnin',  ez 

op'lent  'z  you  please 
In  a  primitive  furrest  o'  femmily-trees,  — 
Who  'd  ha'  thought  thet  them  South- 

uners  ever  'ud  show 
Starns  writh  pedigrees  to  'em  like  theirn 

to  the  foe, 
Or,  when  the  vamosin'  come,  ever  to 

find 

Nat'ral  masters  in  front  an'  mean  white 

folks  behind? 
By  ginger,  ef  I 'd  ha'  knowm  half  I  know 

now, 

When  I  wuz  to  Congress,  I  would  n't,  I 

swow, 

Hev  let  'em  cair  on  so  high-minded  an' 
sarsy, 

'thout  some  show  o'  wut  you  may  call 

vicy-varsy. 
To  be  sure,  we  wuz  under  a  contrac'  jes' 

then 

To  be  dreffle  forbearin'  towards  Southun 
men ; 

We  hed  to  go  sheers  in  preservin'  the 
bellance  : 

An'  ez  they  seemed  to  feel  they  wuz 

wastin'  their  tellents 
'thout  some  un  to  kick,  't  warn't  more 

'n  proper,  you  know, 
Each  should  furmish  his  part ;  an'  sence 

they  found  the  toe, 
An'  we  wuz  n't  cherubs  —  wal,  we  found 

the  buffer, 
For  fear  thet  the  Compromise  System 

should  suffer. 

I  wun't  say  the  plan  hed  n't  onpleasant 

featurs,  — 
For  men  are  perverse  an'  onreasonin' 

creaturs, 


THE  BIGL( 

An'  forgit  thet  in  this  life 't  ain't  likely 
to  heppen 

Their  own  privit  fancy  should  ollus  be 

cappen,  — 
But  it  worked  jest  ez  smooth  ez  the  key 

of  a  safe, 

An'  the  gret  Union  bearins  played  free 

from  all  chafe. 
They  warn't  hard  to  suit,  ef  they  hed 

their  own  way, 
An'  we  (thet  is,  some  on  us)  made  the 

thing  pay  : 
't  wuz  a  fair  give-an'-take  out  of  Uncle 

Sam's  heap  ; 
Ef  they  took  wut  warn't  theirn,  wut  we 

give  come  ez  cheap  ; 
The  elect  gut  the  offices  down  to  tide- 
-waiter, 

The  people  took  skinnin'  ez  mild  ez  a 
tater, 

Seemed  to  choose  who  they  wanted  tu, 

footed  the  bills, 
An'  felt  kind  o'  'z  though  they  wuz 

havin'  their  wills, 
Which  kep'  'em  ez  harmless  an'  cherfle 

ez  crickets, 
While  all  we  invested  wuz  names  on  the 

tickets : 

Wal,  ther'  's  nothin',  for  folks  fond  o' 

lib'ral  consumption 
Free  o'  charge,  like  democ'acy  tempered 

with  gumption ! 

Now  warn't  thet  a  system  wuth  pains  in 

presarvin', 
Where  the  people  found  jints  an'  their 

frien's  done  the  carvin', — 
Where  th  e  many  done  all  o'  their  think  - 

in'  by  proxy, 
An'  were  proud  on 't  ez  long  ez 't  wuz 

christened  Democ'cy,  — 
Where  the  few  let  us  sap  all  o'  Freedom's 

foundations, 
Ef  you  call  it  reformin'  with  prudence 

an'  patience, 
An'  were  willin'  Jeffs  snake-egg  should 

hetch  with  the  rest, 
Ef  you  writ  "  Constitootional  "  over  the 

nest? 

But  it 's  all  out  o'  kilter,  ('t  wuz  too  good 
to  last,) 

An'  all  jes'  by  J.  D.'s  perceedin'  too 
fast ; 

Ef  he 'd  on'y  hung  on  for  a  month  or 
two  more, 

We 'd  ha'  gut  things  fixed  nicer  'n  they 
hed  ben  before : 


W  PAPERS.  267 

Afore  he  drawed  off  an'  lef  all  in  confu- 
sion, 

We  wuz  safely  entrenched  in  the  ole 

Constitootion, 
With  an  outlyin',  heavy-gun,  casemated 

fort 

To  rake  all  assailants,  —  I  mean  th'  S.  J. 
Court. 

Now  I  never  '11  acknowledge  (nut  ef  you 

should  skin  me) 
't  wuz  wise  to  abandon  sech  works  to  the 

in'my, 

An'  let  him  fin'  out  thet  wut  scared  him 
so  long, 

Our  whole  line  of  argyments,  lookin'  so 
strong, 

All  our  Scriptur  an'  law,  every  the'ry 
an'  fac', 

Wuz  Quaker-guns  daubed  with  Pro- 
slavery  black. 

Why,  ef  the  Republicans  ever  should 
git 

Andy  Johnson  or  some  one  to  lend  'em 
the  wit 

An'  the  spunk  jes'  to  mount  Constitoo- 
tion an'  Court 

With  Columbiad  guns,  your  real  ekle- 
rights  sort, 

Or  drill  out  the  spike  from  the  ole  Dec- 
laration 

Thet  can  kerry  a  solid  shot  clearn  roun' 
creation, 

We 'd  better  take  maysures  for  shettin' 
up  shop, 

An'  put  off  our  stock  by  a  vendoo  or 
swop. 

But  they  wun't  never  dare  tu  ;  you  '11 

see  em  in  Edom 
'fore  they  ventur'  to  go  where  their  doc- 
trines 'ud  lead  'em  : 
They  've  ben  takin'  our  princerples  up  ez 

we  dropt  'em, 
An'  thought  it  wuz  terrible  'cute  to 

adopt  'em  ; 
But  they  '11  fin'  out  'fore  long  thet  their 

hope 's  ben  deceivin'  'em, 
An'  thet  princerples  ain't  o'  no  good,  ef 

you  b'lieve  in  'em  ; 
It  makes  'em  tu  stiff  for  a  party  to 

use, 

Where  they 'd  ough'  to  be  easy  'z  an  ole 

pair  o'  shoes. 
If  we  say  'n  our  pletform  thet  all  men 

are  brothers, 
We  don't  mean  thet  some  folks  ain't 

more  so  'n  some  others  ; 


2G8  THE  BIGLC 

An'  it 's  wal  understood  thet  we  make  a 
selection, 

An'  thet  brotherhood  kin'  o'  subsides 

arter  'lection. 
The  fust  thing  for  sound  politicians  to 

larn  is, 

Thet  Truth,  to  dror  kindly  in  all  sorts 

o'  harness, 
Mus'  be  kep'  in  the  abstract,  — for,  come 

to  apply  it, 
You  're  ept  to  hurt  some  folks's  interists 

by  it. 

Wal,  these  'ere  Republicans  (some  on 
'em)  ects 

Ez  though  gineral   mexims   'ud  suit 

speshle  facts  ; 
An'  there  's  where  we  '11  nick  'em,  there 's 

where  they  '11  be  lost : 
For  applyin'  your  princerple 's  wut  makes 

it  cost, 

An'  folks  don't  want  Fourth  o'  July  t' 
interfere 

With  the  business-consarns  o'  the  rest  o' 
the  year, 

No  more  'n  they  want  Sunday  to  pry  an' 
to  peek 

Into  wut  they  are  doin'  the  rest  o'  the 
week. 

A  ginooine  statesman  should  be  on  his 
guard, 

Ef  he  must  hev  beliefs,  nut  to  b'lieve  'em 
tu  hard ; 

For,  ez  sure  ez  he  does,  he  '11  be  blartin' 
'em  out 

'thout  regardin'  the  natur'  o'  man  more 

'n  a  spout, 
Nor  it  don't  ask  much  gumption  to  pick 

out  a  flaw 

In  a  party  whose  leaders  are  loose  in  the 
jaw  : 

An'  so  in  our  own  case  I  ventur'  to 
hint 

Thet  we 'd  better  nut  air  our  perceedin's 
in  print, 

Nor  pass  resserlootions  ez  long  ez  your 
arm 

Thet  may,  ez  things  heppen  to  turn,  do 
us  harm ; 

For  when  you  've  done  all  your  real 
meanin'  to  smother, 

The  darned  things  '11  up  an'  mean  sun- 
thin'  or  'nother. 

Jeff 'son  prob'ly  meant  wal  with  his  "born 
free  an'  ekle," 

But  it  's  turned  out  a  real  crooked  stick 
in  the  sekle ; 


W  PAPERS. 

It 's  taken  full  eighty-odd  year — don't 

you  see  ? — 
From  the  pop'lar  belief  to  root  out  thet 

idee, 

An',  arter  all,  suckers  on  't  keep  buddin' 
forth 

In  the  nat'lly  onprincipled  mind  o'  the 
North. 

No,  never  say  nothin'  without  you  're 

compelled  tu, 
An'  then  don't  say  nothin'  thet  you  can 

be  held  tu, 
Nor  don't  leave  no  friction-idees  layin' 

loose 

For  the  ign'ant  to  put  to  incend'ary 
use. 

You  know  I 'm  a  feller  thet  keeps  a 

skinned  eye 
On  the  leetle  events  thet  go  skurryin' 

Coz  it 's  ofner  by  them  than  by  gret 

ones  you  '11  see 
Wut  the  p'litickle  weather  is  likely  to 

be. 

Now  I  don't  think  the  South 's  more  'n 
begun  to  be  licked, 

But  I  du  think,  ez  Jeff  says,  the  wind- 
bag 's  gut  pricked ; 

It  '11  blow  for  a  spell  an'  keep  puffin'  an' 
wheezin', 

The  tighter  our  army  an'  navy  keep 

squeezin',  — 
For  they  can't  help  spread -eaglein'  long 

'z  ther'  's  a  mouth 
To  blow  Enfield's  Speaker  thru  lef  at 

the  South. 
But  it 's  high  time  for  us  to  be  settin' 

our  faces 

Towards  reconstructin'  the  national  ba- 
sis, 

With  an  eye  to  beginnin'  agin  oh  the 

jolly  ticks 
We  used  to  chalk  up  'hind  the  back-door 

o'  politics; 
An'  the  fus'  thing  's  to  save  wut  of 

Slav'ry  ther'  's  lef 
Arter  this  (I  mus'  call  it)  imprudence  o' 

Jeff: 

For  a  real  good  Abuse,  with  its  roots  fur 
an'  wide, 

Is  the  kin'  o'  thing  /  like  to  hev  on  my 

side  ; 

A  Scriptur'  name  makes  it  ez  sweet  ez  a 
rose, 

An'  it 's  tougher  the  older  an'  uglier  it 
grows  — ■ 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPEES. 


269 


(I  ain't  speak  in*  now  o'  the  righteous- 
ness of  it, 

But  the  p'litickle  purchase  it  gives  an' 
the  profit). 

Things  look  pooty  squally,  it  must  be 
allowed, 

An'  I  don't  see  much  signs  of  a  bow  in 

the  cloud : 
Ther'  's  too  many  Deemocrats  —  leaders 

wut 's  wuss  — 
Thet  go  for  the  Union  'thout  carin'  a 

cuss 

Ef  it  helps  ary  party  thet  ever  wuz 
heard  on, 

So  our  eagle  ain't  made  a  split  Austrian 
bird  on. 

But  ther'  's  still  some  consarvative  signs 

^to  be  found 
Thet  shows  the  gret  heart  o'  the  People 
is  sound  : 

(Excuse  me  for  usin'  a  stump-phrase 
agin, 

But,  once  in  the  way  on 't,  they  will 

stick  like  sin :) 
There 's  Phillips,  for  instance,  hez  jes' 

k etched  a  Tartar 
In  the  Law-'n' -Order  Party  of  ole  Cin- 

cinnater ; 

An'  the  Compromise  System  ain't  gone 

out  o'  reach, 
Long  'z  you  keep  the  right  limits  on 

freedom  o'  speech. 
'T  wTarn't  none  too  late,  neither,  to  put 

on  the  gag, 
For  he 's  dangerous  now  he  goes  in  for 

the  flag. 

Nut  thet  I  altogether  approve  o'  bad 
eggs, 

They  're  mos'  gin'lly  argymunt  on  its 
las'  legs,  — 

An'  their  logic  is  ept  to  be  tu  indis- 
criminate, 

Nor  don't  ollus  wait  the  right  objecs  to 
'liminate ; 

But  there  is  a  variety  on  'em,  you  '11 
find, 

Jest  ez  usefle  an'  more,  besides  bein' 

refined,  — 
I  mean  o'  the  sort  thet  are  laid  by  the 

dictionary, 
Sech  ez  sophisms  an'  cant,  thet  '11  kerry 

conviction  ary 
Way  thet  you  want  to  the  right  class  o' 

men, 

An'  are  staler  than  all 't  ever  come  from 
a  hen : 


"Disunion"  done  wal  till  our  resh 

Southun  friends 
Took  the  savor  all  out  on  't  for  national 

ends ; 

But  1  guess  "Abolition  "  '11  work  a  spell 

yit, 

When  the  war 's  done,  an'  so  will  "  For- 

give-an'-forgit." 
Times  mus'  be  pooty  thoroughly  out  o' 

all  jint, 

Ef  we  can't  make  a  good  constitootional 
pint ; 

An'  the  good  time  '11  come  to  be  grindin' 
our  exes, 

When  the  war  goes  to  seed  in  the  nettle 
o'  texes : 

Ef  Jon'than  don't  squirm,  with  sech 

helps  to  assist  him, 
I  give  up  my  faith  in  the  free-suffrage 

system ; 

Democ'cy  wun't  be  nut  a  mite  inter- 
estin', 

Nor  p'litikle  capital  much  wuth  in- 
vestin' ; 

An'  my  notion  is,  to  keep  dark  an'  lay 
low 

Till  we  see  the  right  minute  to  put  in 
our  blow.  — 

But  I 've  talked  longer  now  'n  I  lied  any 
idee, 

An'  ther'  's  others  you  want  to  hear 

more  'n  you  du  me ; 
So  I  '11  set  down  an'  give  thet  'ere  bottle 

a  skrimmage, 
For  I 've  spoke  till  I 'm  dry  ez  a  real 

graven  image. 


No.  VI. 

SUNTHIN'  IN  THE  PASTORAL  LINE. 

TO  THE  EDITORS  OF  THE  ATLANTIC 
MONTHLY. 

Jaalam,  17th  May,  1862. 
Gentlemen,  —  At  the  special  request  of 
Mr.  Biglow,  I  intended  to  inclose,  together 
with  his  own  contribution,  (into  which, 
at  my  suggestion,  he  has  thrown  a  little 
more  of  pastoral  sentiment  than  usual,) 
some  passages  from  my  sermon  on  the  day 
of  the  National  Fast,  from  the  text,  "  Re- 
member them  that  are  in  bonds,  as  bound 
with  them,"  Heb.  xiii.  3.    But  I  have  not 


270 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


leisure  sufficient  at  present  for  the  copy- 
ing of  them,  even  were  I  altogether  satis- 
fied with  the  production  as  it  stands.  I 
should  prefer,  I  confess,  to  contribute  the 
entire  discourse  to  the  pages  of  your  re- 
spectable miscellany,  if  it  should  be  found 
acceptable  upon  perusal,  especially  as  I 
find  the  difficulty  of  selection  of  greater 
magnitude  than  I  had  anticipated.  What 
passes  without  challenge  in  the  fervour  of 
oral  delivery,  cannot  always  stand  the 
colder  criticism  of  the  closet.  I  am  not 
so  great  an  enemy  of  Eloquence  as  my 
friend  Mr.  Biglow  would  appear  to  be  from 
some  passages  in  his  contribution  for  the 
current  month.  I  would  not,  indeed, 
hastily  suspect  him  of  covertly  glancing  at 
myself  in  his  somewhat  caustick  animad- 
versions, albeit  some  of  the  phrases  he 
girds  at  are  not  entire  strangers  to  my  lips. 
I  am  a  more  hearty  admirer  of  the  Puri- 
tans than  seems  now  to  he  the  fashion,  and 
believe,  that,  if  they  Hebraized  a  little  too 
much  in  their  speech,  they  showed  remark- 
able practical  sagacity  as  statesmen  and 
founders.  But  such  phenomena  as  Puri- 
tanism are  the  results  rather  of  great  relig- 
ious than  merely  social  convulsions,  and 
do  not  long  survive  them..  So  soon  as  an 
earnest  conviction  has  cooled  into  a  phrase, 
its  work  is  over,  and  the  best  that  can  be 
done  with  it  is  to  bury  it.  Ite,  missa  est. 
I  am  inclined  to  agree  with  Mr.  Biglow 
that  we  cannot  settle  the  great  political 
questions  which  are  now  presenting  them- 
selves to  the  nation  by  the  opinions  of 
Jeremiah  or  Ezekiel  as  to  the  wants  and 
duties  of  the  Jews  in  their  time,  nor  do  I 
believe  that  an  entire  community  with 
their  feelings  and  views  would  be  practica- 
ble or  even  agreeable  at  the  present  day. 
At  the  same  time  I  could  wish  that  their 
habit  of  subordinating  the  actual  to  the 
moral,  the  flesh  to  the  spirit,  and  this 
world  to  the  other,  were  more  common. 
They  had  found  out,  at  least,  the  great 
military  secret  that  soul  weighs  more  than 
body.  —  But  I  am  suddenly  called  to  a 
sick-bed  in  the  household  of  a  valued  par- 
ishioner. 

With  esteem  and  respect, 

Your  obedient  servant, 

Homer  Wilbur. 


Once  git  a  smell  o'  musk  into  a  draw, 
An'  it  clings  hold  like  precerdents  in 
law  : 

Your  gra'  ma'am  put  it  there,  —  when, 

goodness  knows,  — 
To  jes'  this-worldify  her  Sunday-clo'es  ; 


But  the  old  chist  wun't  sarve  her  gran'- 

son's  wife, 
(For,  'thout  new  funnitoor,  wut  good  in 

life  ?) 

An'  so  ole  clawfoot,  from  the  precinks 
dread 

0'  the  spare  chamber,  slinks  into  the 
shed, 

Where,  dim  with  dust,  it  fust  or  last 

subsides 

To  holdin'  seeds  an'  fifty  things  besides ; 
But  better  days  stick  fast  in  heart  an' 
husk, 

An'  all  you  keep  in 't  gits  a  scent  o' 
musk. 

Jes'  so  with  poets :  wut  they  Ve  airly  read 
Gits  kind  o'  worked  into  their  heart  an' 
head, 

So 's  't  they  can't  seem  to  write  but  jest 
on  sheers 

With  furrin  countries  or  played-out 
ideers, 

Nor  hev  a  feelin',  ef  it  doos  n't  smack 
0'  wut  some  critter  chose  to  feel  'way 
ba  ck  : 

This  makes  'em  talk  o'  daisies,  larks,  an' 
things, 

Ez  though  we 'd  nothin'  here  that  blows 
an'  sings,  — 

(Why,  I 'd  give  more  for  one  live  bobo- 
link 

Than  a  square  mile  o'  larks  in  printer's 
ink,)  — 

This  makes  'em  think  our  fust  o'  May  is 
May, 

Which 't  ain't,  for  all  the  almanicks  can 
say. 

0  little  city-gals,  don't  never  go  it 

Blind  on  the  word  o'  noospaper  or  poet  ! 

They  're  apt  to  puff,  an'  May-day  sel- 
dom looks 

Up  in  the  country  ez  it  doos  in  books  ; 

They  're  no  more  like  than  hornets'- 
nests  an'  hives, 

Or  printed  sarmons  be  to  holy  lives. 

I,  with  my  trouses  perched  on  cowhide 
boots, 

Tuggin'  my  foundered  feet  out  by  the 
roots, 

Hev  seen  ye  come  to  fling  on  April's 

hearse 

Your  muslin  nosegays  from  the  mil- 
liner's, 

Puzzlin'  to  find  dry  ground  your  queen 
to  choose, 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


271 


An'  dance  your  throats  sore  in  morocker 
shoes  : 

I  've  seen  ye  an'  felt  proud,  thet,  come 

wut  would, 
Our  Pilgrim  stock  wuz  pithed  with 

hardihood. 
Pleasure  doos  make  us  Yankees  kind  o' 

winch, 

Ez  though 't  wuz  sunthin'  paid  for  by 

the  inch  ; 
But  yit  we  du  contrive  to  worry  thru, 
Ef  Dooty  tells  us  thet  the  thing's  to  du, 
An'  kerry  a  hollerday,  ef  we  set  out, 
Ez  stiddily  ez  though  't  wuz  a  redoubt. 

I,  country-born  an'  bred,  know  where  to 
find 

Some  blooms  thet  make  the  season  suit 
the  mind, 

An'  seem  to  metch  the  doubtin'  blue- 
bird's notes,  — 
Half-vent'rin'  liverworts  in  furry  coats, 
Bloodroots,  whose  rolled-up  leaves  ef 

you  oncurl, 
Each  on  'em 's  cradle  to  a  baby-pearl,  — 
But  these  are  jes'  Spring's  pickets  ;  sure 
ez  sin, 

The  rebble  frosts  '11  try  to  drive  'em  in  ; 
For  half  our  May  's  so  awfully  like 
May  n't, 

't  would  rile  a  Shaker  or  an  evrige  saint  ; 
Though  I  own  up  I  like  our  back'ard 
springs 

Thet  kind  o'  haggle  with  their  greens 

an'  things, 
An'  when  you  'most  give  up,  'ithout 

more  words 
Toss  the  fields  full  o'  blossoms,  leaves, 

an'  birds  : 

Thet 's  Northun  natur',  slow  an'  apt  to 
doubt, 

But  when  it  doos  git  stirred,  ther'  's  no 
gin-out  ! 

Fust  come  the  blackbirds  clatt'rin'  in 
tall  trees, 

An'  settlin'  things  in  windy  Congresses,  — 
Queer  politicians,  though,  for  I  '11  be 
skinned 

Ef  all  on  'em  don't  head  aginst  the  wind, 
'fore  long  the  trees  begin  to  show  be- 
lief,— 

The  maple  crimsons  to  a  coral-reef, 
Then  satiern  swarms  swing  off  from  all 

the  willers 
So  plump  they  look  like  yaller  caterpil- 
lars, 


Then  gray  hossches'nuts  leetle  hands 
unfold 

Softer  'n  a  baby's  be  at  three  days  old  : 
Thet 's  robin-redbreast's  almanick  ;  he 
knows 

Thet  arter  this  ther'  's  only  blossom- 
snows  ; 

So,  choosin'  out  a  handy  crotch  an' 
spouse, 

He  goes  to  plast'rin'  his  adobe  house. 

Then  seems  to  come  a  hitch,  —  things 

lag  behind, 
Till  some  fine  mornin'  Spring  makes  up 

her  mind, 

An'  ez,  when  snow-swelled  rivers  cresh 

their  dams 
Heaped-up  with  ice  thet  dovetails  in 

an'  jams, 

A  leak  comes  spirtin'  thru  some  pin-hole 
cleft, 

Grows  stronger,  fercer,  tears  out  right 
an'  left, 

Then  all  the  waters  bow  themselves  an' 
come, 

Suddin,  in  one  gret  slope  o'  shedderin' 
foam, 

Jes'  so  our  Spring  gits  everythin'  in  tune 
An'  gives  one  leap   from  April  into 
June : 

Then  all  comes  crowdin'  in  ;  afore  you 
think, 

Young   oak -leaves   mist  the  side-hill 

woods  with  pink ; 
The  catbird  in  the  laylock-bush  is  loud ; 
The  orchards  turn  to  heaps  o'  rosy  cloud ; 
Red-cedars  blossom  tu,  though  lew  folks 

know  it, 

An'  look  all  dipt  in  sunshine  like  a  poet ; 
The  lime-trees  pile  their  solid  stacks  o' 
shade 

An'  drows'ly  simmer  with  the  bees' 

sweet  trade  ; 
In  ellum-shrouds  the  flashin'  hangbird 

clings 

An'  for  the  summer  vy'ge  his  hammock 
slings  ; 

All  down  the  loose-walled  lanes  in 

archin'  bowers 
The  barb'ry  droops  its  strings  o'  golden 

flowers, 

Whose  shrinkin'  hearts  the  school-gals 

love  to  try 
With  pins,  —  they  '11  worry  yourn  so, 

boys,  bimeby  ! 
But  I  don't  love  your  cat'logue  style,  — 

do  you  ?  — 


272 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


Ez  ef  to  sell  off  Natur'  by  vendoo  ; 
One  word  with  blood  in  't 's  twice  ez 

good  ez  two  : 
'nuff  sed,  June's  bridesman,  poet  o'  the 

year, 

Gladness  on  wings,  the  bobolink,  is  here  ; 
Half-hid  in   tip-top  apple-blooms  he 
swings, 

Or  climbs  aginst  the  breeze  with  quiv- 

erin'  wings, 
Or,  givin'  way  to 't  in  a  mock  despair, 
Kuns  down,  a  brook  o'  laughter,  thru 

the  air. 

I  ollus  feel  the  sap  start  in  my  veins 
In  Spring,  with  curus  heats  an'  prickly 
pains, 

Thet  drive  me,  when  I  git  a  chance,  to 
walk 

Off  by  myself  to  he v  a  privit  talk 
"With  a  queer  critter  thet  can't  seem  to 
'gree 

Along  o'  me  like  most  folks,  —  Mister 
Me. 

Ther'  's  times  when  I 'm  unsoshle  ez  a 
stone, 

An'  sort  o'  suffocate  to  be  alone,  — 
I 'm  crowded  jes'  to  think  thet  folks  are 
nigh, 

An'  can't  bear  nothin'  closer  than  the 
sky  ; 

Now  the  wind  's  full  ez  shifty  in  the 
mind 

Ez  wut  it  is  ou'-doors,  ef  I  ain't  blind, 
An'  sometimes,  in  the  fairest  sou' west 
weather, 

My  innard  vane  pints  east  for  weeks  to- 
gether, 

My  natur'  gits  all  goose-flesh,  an'  my  sins 
Come  drizzlin'  on  my  conscience  sharp 
ez  pins  : 

Wal,  et  sech  times  I  jes'  slip  out  o'  sight 
An'  take  it  out  in  a  fair  stan'-up  fight 
With  the  one  cuss  I  can't  lay  on  the  shelf, 
The  crook'dest  stick  in  all  the  heap,  — 
Myself. 

'T  wuz  so  las'  Sabbath  arter  meetin'- 
time : 

Findin'  my  feelin's  would  n't  noways 
rhyme 

With  nobody's,  but  off  the  hendle  flew 
An'  took  tilings  from  an  east-wind  pint 
o'  view, 

I  started  off  to  lose  me  in  the  hills 
Where  the  pines  be,  up  back  o'  'Siah's 
Mills  : 


Pines,  ef  you  're  blue,  are  the  best  friends 
1  know, 

They  mope  an'  sigh  an'  sheer  your  feel- 

in's  so,  — 
They  hesh  the  ground  beneath  so,  tu,  I 

swan, 

You  half-forgit  you 've  gut  a  body  on. 
Ther'  's  a  small  school  us'  there  where 

four  roads  meet, 
The  door-steps  hollered  out  by  little  feet, 
An'  side-posts  carved  with  names  whose 

owners  grew 
To  gret  men,  some  on  'em,  an'  deacons, 

tu  ; 

't  ain't  used  no  longer,  coz  the  town 
hez  gut 

A  high-school,  where  they  teach  the 

Lord  knows  wut  : 
Three-story  larnin'  's  poplar  now  ;  I 

guess 

We  thriv'  ez  wal  on  jes'  two  stories  less, 
For  it  strikes  me  ther'  's  sech  a  thing  ez 
sinnin' 

By  overloadin'  children's  underpinnin'  : 
Wal,  here  it  wuz  I  lamed  my  A  B  C, 
An'  it 's  a  kind  o'  favorite  spot  with  me. 

We  're  curus  critters  :  Now  ain't  jes'  the 
minute 

Thet  ever  fits  us  easy  while  we  're  in 
it  ; 

Long  ez 't  wuz  futur',  't  would  be  perfect 
bliss,  — 

Soon  ez  it 's  past,  thet  time 's  wuth  ten 
o'  this  ; 

An'  yit  there  ain't  a  man  thet  need  be 
told 

Thet  Now 's  the  only  bird  lays  eggs  o' 
gold. 

A  knee-high  lad,  I  used  to  plot  an'  plan 
An'  think 't  wuz  life's  cap-sheaf  to  be  a 
man  ; 

Now,  gittin'  gray,  there's  nothin'  I  enjoy 
Like  dreamin'  back  along  into  a  boy  : 
So  the  ole  school'us'  is  a  place  I  choose 
Afore  all  others,  ef  I  want  to  muse  ; 
I  set  down  where  I  used  to  set,  an'  git 
My  boyhood  back,  an'  better  things  with 
it,  — 

Faith,  Hope,  an'  sunthin',  ef  it  is  n't 
Cherrity, 

It 's  want  o'  guile,  an'  thet 's  ez  gret  a 
rerrity,  — 

While  Fancy's  cushin',  free  to  Prince 
and  Clown, 

Makes  the  hard  bench  ez  soft  ez  milk- 
weed-down. 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


273 


Now,  'fore  I  knowed,  thet  Sabbath 
arternoon 

Thet  I  sot  out  to  tramp  myself  in  tune, 
I  found  me  in  the  school'us'  on  my  seat, 
Drummin'  the  march  to  No-wheres  with 
my  feet. 

Thinkin'  o'  nothin',  I 've  heerd  ole  folks 
say 

Is  a  hard  kind  o'  dooty  in  its  way  : 
It 's  thinkin'  every  thin'  you  ever  knew, 
Or  ever  hearn,  to  make  your  feelin's  blue. 
I  sot  there  tryin'  thet  on  for  a  spell : 
I  thought  o'  the  Rebellion,  then  o'  Hell, 
Which  some  folks  tell  ye  now  is  jest  a 
metterfor 

(A  the'ry,  p'raps,  it  wun't  feel  none  the 

better  for) ; 
I  thought  o'  Reconstruction,  wut  we 'd 

win 

Patchin'  our  patent  self-blow-up  agin  : 
1  thought  ef  this  'ere  milkin'  o'  the 
wits, 

So  much  a  month,  warn't  givin'  Natur' 
fits,  — 

Ef  folks  warn't  druv,  findin'  their  own 
milk  fail, 

To  work  the  cow  thet  hez  an  iron  tail, 
An'  ef  idees  'thout  ripenin'  in  the  pan 
Would  send  up  cream  to  humor  ary  man : 
From  this  to  thet  I  let  my  worryin'  creep, 
.  Till  finally  I  must  ha'  fell  asleep. 

Our  lives  in  sleep  are  some  like  streams 
thet  glide 

'twixt  flesh  an'  sperrit  boundin'  on  each 
side, 

Where  both  shores'  shadders  kind  o' 

mix  an'  mingle 
In  sunthin'  thet  ain't  jes'  like  either 

single  ; 

An'  when  you  cast  off  moorin's  from 
To-day, 

An'  down  towards  To-morrer  drift  away, 
The  imiges  thet  tengle  on  the  stream 
Make  a  new  upside- down' ard  world  o' 
dream  : 

Sometimes  they  seem  like  sunrise-streaks 

an'  warnin's 
0'  wut  '11  be  in  Hea  ven  on  Sabbath - 

mornin's, 

An',  mixed  right  in  ez  ef  jest  out  o'  spite, 
Sunthin'  thet  says  your  supper  ain't  gone 
right. 

I  'm  gret  on  dreams,  an'  often  when  I 
wake, 

I 've  lived  so  much  it  makes  my  mem'ry 
ache, 

18 


An'  can't  skurce  take  a  cat-nap  in  my 
cheer 

'thout  hevin'  'em,  some  good,  some  bad, 
all  queer. 

Now  I  wuz  settin'  where  I  VI  ben,  it 
seemed, 

An'  ain't  sure  yit  whether  I  r'ally 
dreamed, 

Nor,  ef  I  did,  how  long  I  might  ha' 
slep', 

When  I  hearn  some  un  stompin'  up  the 
step, 

An'  lookin'  round,  ef  two  an'  two  make 
four, 

I  see  a  Pilgrim  Father  in  the  door. 
He  wore  a  steeple-hat,  tall  boots,  an' 
spurs 

With  rowels  to  'em  big  ez  ches'nut-burrs, 
An'  his  gret  sword  behind  him  sloped 
away 

Long  'z  a  man's  speech  thet  dunno  wut 
to  say.  — 

"  Ef  your  name 's  Biglow,  an'  your 

given -name 
Hosee,"  sez  he,  "  it 's  arter  you  I  came  ; 
I 'm  your  gret-gran'ther  multiplied  by 

three."  — 

"My  wut  ?  "  sez  I.  —  "  Your  gret-gret- 

gret,"  sez  he  : 
"  You  would  n't  ha'  never  ben  here  but 

for  me. 

Two  hundred  an'  three  year  ago  this  May 
The  ship  I  come  in  sailed  up  Boston  Bay ; 
I 'd  been  a  cunnle  in  our  Civil  War,  — 
But  wut  on  airth  hev  you  gut  up  one  for? 
Coz  we  du  things  in  England,  't  ain't  for 
you 

To  git  a  notion  you  can  du  'em  tu  : 
I 'm  told  you  write  in  public  prints  :  ef 
true, 

It 's  nateral  you  should  know  a  thing 
or  two."  — 

"Thet  air's  an  argymunt  I  can't  en- 
dorse, — 

't  would  prove,  coz  you  wear  spurs,  you 

kep'  a  horse  : 
For  brains,"  sez  I,  "  wutever  you  may 

think, 

Ain't  boun'  to  cash  the  drafs  o'  pen-an'- 
ink,  — 

Though  mos'  folks  write  ez  ef  they  hoped 

jes'  quickenin' 
The  churn  would  argoo  skim-milk  into 

thickenin'  ; 
But  skim-milk  ain't  a  thing  to  change 

its  view 


274 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


O'  wut  it 's  meant  for  more  'n  a  smoky 
flue. 

But  du  pray  tell  me,  'fore  we  furder  go, 
How  in  all  Natur'  did  you  come  to  know 
'bout  our  affairs,"  sez  I,  "in  Kingdom- 
Come  ? "  — 
"Wal,  I  worked  round  at  sperrit-rappin' 
some, 

An'  danced  the  tables  till  their  legs  wuz 
gone, 

In  hopes  o'  larnin'  wut  wuz  goin'  on," 
Sez  he,  "but  mejums  lie  so  like  all-split 
Thet  I  concluded  it  wuz  best  to  quit. 
But,  come  now,  ef  you  wun't  confess  to 
knowin', 

You  Ve    some   conjectures   how  the 

thing 's  a-goin'."  — 
"Gran'ther,"  sez   I,   "a  vane  warn't 

never  known 
Nor  asked  to  hev  a  jedgment  of  its  own  ; 
An'  yit,  ef 't  ain't  gut  rusty  in  the  jints, 
It 's  safe  to  trust  its  say  on  certin  pints  : 
It  knows  the  wind's  opinions  to  a  T, 
An'  the  wind  settles  wut  the  weather  '11 

be." 

a  I  never  thought  a  scion  of  our  stock 
Could  grow  the  wood  to  make  a  weather- 
cock ; 

When  I  wuz  younger  'n  you,  skurce 

more  'n  a  shaver, 
No  airthly  wind,"  sez  he,  "could  make 

me  waver  ! " 
(Ez  he  said  this,  he  clinched  his  jaw  an' 

forehead, 

Hitchin'  his  belt  to  bring  his  sword-hilt 

forrard.)  — 
"  Jes  so  it  wuz  with  me,"  sez  I,  "I  swow, 
When  /  wuz  younger  'n  wut  you  see  me 

now,  — 

Nothin'  from  Adam's  fall  to  Huldy's 
bonnet, 

Thet  I  warn't  full-cocked  with  my  jedg- 
ment on  it  ; 
But  now  I 'm  gittin'  on  in  life,  I  find 
It 's  a  sight  harder  to  make  up  my 
mind,  — 

Nor  I  don't  often  try  tu,  when  events 
Will  du  it  for  me  free  of  all  expense. 
The    moral    question  's    ollus  plain 

enough,  — 
It's  jes'  the  human-natur'  side  thet 's 

tough  ; 

Wut 's  best  to  think  may  n't  puzzle  me 

nor  you,  — 
The  pinch  comes  in  decidin'  wut  to  du; 
Ef  you  read  History,  all  runs  smooth  ez 

grease, 


Coz  there  the  men  ain't  nothin'  more  'n 

idees,  — 

But  come  to  make  it,  ez  we  must  to-day, 
Th'  idees  hev  arms  an'  legs  an'  stop  the 
way  : 

It 's  easy  flxin'  things  in  facts  an'  Ag- 
gers, — 

They  can't  resist,  nor  warn't  brought  up 

with  niggers  ; 
But  come  to  try  your  the'ry  on,  —  why, 

then 

Your  facts  an'  Aggers  change  to  ign'ant 
men 

Actin'  ez  ugly  — " — "Smite  'em  hip 

an'  thigh  !  " 
Sez  gran'ther,  "and  let  every  man-child 

die  ! 

Oh  for  three  weeks  o'  Crommle  an'  the 
Lord  ! 

Up,  Isr'el,  to  your  tents  an'  grind  the 

sword  !  "  — 
"Thet  kind  o'  thing  worked  wal  in  ole 

Judee, 

But  you  forgit  how  long  it 's  ben  A.  D.  ; 
You  think  thet 's  ellerkence,  —  I  call  it 
shoddy, 

A  thing,"  sez  I,  "  wun't  cover  soul  nor 
body  ; 

I  like  the  plain  all-wool  o'  common- 
sense, 

Thet  warms  ye  now,  an'  will  a  twelve- 
month hence. 

You  took  to  follerin'  where  the  Prophets 
beckoned, 

An',  fust  you  knowed  on,  back  come 

Charles  the  Second  ; 
Now  wut  I  want 's  to  hev  all  we  gain 

stick, 

An'  not  to  start  Millennium  too  quick  : 
We  hain't  to  punish  only,  but  to  keep, 
An'  the  cure 's  gut  to  go  a  cent'ry  deep." 
"  Wal,  milk-an' -water  ain't  the  best  o' 
glue," 

Sez  he,  "an'  so  you  '11  find  before  you  're 
thru  ; 

Ef  reshness  venters  sunthin',  shilly- 
shally 

Loses  ez  often  wut 's  ten  times  the  vally. 
Thet  exe  of  ourn,  when  Charles's  neck 
gut  split, 

Opened  a  gap  thet  ain't  bridged  over  yit : 
Slav'ry  's  your  Charles,  the  Lord  hez  gin 

the  exe  —  " 
"Our  Charles,"  sez  I,  "hez  gut  eight 

million  necks. 
The  hardest  question  ain't  the  black 

man's  right, 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


275 


The  trouble  is  to  'mancipate  the  white  ; 
One's  chained  in  body  an'  can  be  sot 
free, 

But  t'  other 's  chained  in  soul  to  an  idee  : 
It 's  a  long  job,  but  we  shall  worry  thru 
it; 

Ef  bagnets  fail,  the  spellin'-book  must 
du  it." 

"  Hosee,"  sez  he,  "  I  think  you  're  goin' 
to  fail : 

The  rettlesnake  ain't  dangerous  in  the 
tail  ; 

This  'ere  rebellion 's  nothin  but  the 
rettle,  — 

You  '11  stomp  on  thet  an'  think  you  Ve 

won  the  bettle  ; 
It 's.  Slavery  thet 's  the  fangs  an'  thinkin' 
-  head, 

An'  ef  you  want  selvation,  cresh  it 
dead,  — 

An'  cresh  it  suddin,  or  you  11  larn  by 
waitin' 

Thet  Chance  wun't  stop  to  listen  to  de- 

batin'  ! "  — 
"God's  truth  !  "  sez  I,  —  "an'  ef /held 

the  club, 

An'  knowed  jes'  where  to  strike,  — but 

there 's  the  rub  !  "  — 
"Strike  soon,"  sez  he,  "or  you'll  be 

deadly  ailin',  — 
Folks  thet 's  afeared  to  fail  are  sure  o' 

failin'  ; 

God  hates  your  sneakin'  creturs  thet 
believe 

He  '11  settle  things  they  run  away  an' 
leave  !" 

He  brought  his  foot  down  fercely,  ez  he 
spoke, 

An'  give  me  sech  a  startle  thet  I  woke. 


No.  VII. 

LATEST  VIEWS  OF  MR.  BIGLOW. 

PRELIMINARY  NOTE. 

[It  is  with  feelings  of  the  liveliest  pain 
that  we  inform  our  readers  of  the.  death  of 
the  Reverend  Homer  Wilbur,  A.  M.,  which 
took  place  suddenly,  by  an  apoplectic 
stroke,  on  the  afternoon  of  Christmas  day, 
1862.  Our  venerable  friend  (for  so  we 
may  venture  to  call  him,  though  we  never 
enjoyed  the  high  privilege  of  his  personal 
acquaintance)  was  in  his  eighty-fourth 
year,  having  been  born  June  12,  1779,  at 


Pigsgusset  Precinct  (now  West  Jerusha) 
in  the  then  District  of  Maine.  Graduated 
with  distinction  at  Hubville  College  in 
1805,  he  pursued  his  theological  studies 
with  the  late  Reverend  Preserved  Thacker, 
D.  D.,  and  was  called  to  the  charge  of  the 
First  Society  in  Jaalam  in  1809,  where  he 
remained  till  his  death. 

"As  an  antiquary  he  has  probably  left 
no  superior,  if,  indeed,  an  equal,"  writes 
his  friend  and  colleague,  the  Reverend 
Jeduthun  Hitchcock,  to  whom  we  are 
indebted  for  the  above  facts  ;  "in  proof  of 
which  I  need  only  allude  to  his  '  History 
of  Jaalam,  Genealogical,  Topographical, 
and  Ecclesiastical,'  1849,  which  has  won 
him  an  eminent  and  enduring  place  in  our 
more  solid  and  useful  literature.  It  is 
only  to  be  regretted  that  his  intense  appli- 
cation to  historical  studies  should  have  so 
entirely  withdrawn  him  from  the  pursuit 
of  poetical  composition,  for  which  he  was 
endowed  by  Nature  with  a  remarkable 
aptitude.  His  well-known  hymn,  begin- 
ning 'With  clouds  of  care  encompassed 
round,'  has  been  attributed  in  some  collec- 
tions to  the  late  President  Dwight,  and  it 
is  hardly  presumptuous  to  affirm  that  the 
simile  of  the  rainbow  in  the  eighth  stanza 
would  do  no  discredit  to  that  polished 
pen." 

We  regret  that  we  have  not  room  at 
present  for  the  whole  of  Mr.  Hitchcock's 
exceedingly  valuable  communication.  We 
hope  to  lay  more  liberal  extracts  from  it 
before  our  readers  at  an  early  day.  A 
summary  of  its  contents  will  give  some 
notion  of  its  importance  and  interest.  It 
contains  :  1st,  A  biographical  sketch  of 
Mr.  Wilbur,  with  notices  of  his  predeces- 
sors in  the  pastoral  office,  and  of  eminent 
clerical  contemporaries  ;  2d,  An  obitu- 
ary of  deceased,  from  the  Punkin-Falls 
"Weekly  ,  Parallel "  ;  3d,  A  list  of  his 
printed  and  manuscript  productions  and 
of  projected  works  ;  Ith,  Personal  anec- 
dotes and  recollections,  with  specimens  of 
table-talk  ;  5th,  A  tribute  to  his  relict, 
Mrs.  Dorcas  (Pilcox)  Wilbur;  6th,  A  list 
of  graduates  fitted  for  different  colleges  by 
Mr.  Wilbur,  with  biographical  memoranda 
touching  the  more  distinguished  ;  7th, 
Concerning  learned,  charitable,  and  other 
societies,  of  which  Mr.  Wilbur  was  a 
member,  and  of  those  with  which,  had  his 
life  been  prolonged,  he  would  doubtless 
have  been  associated,  with  a  complete  cat- 
alogue of  such  Americans  as  have  been 
Fellows  of  the  Royal  Society  ;  8th,  A  brief 
summary  of  Mr.  Wilbur's  latest  conclu- 
sions concerning  the  Tenth  Horn  of  the 
Beast  in  its  special  application  to  recent 
events  for  which  the  public,  as  Mr.  Hitch- 


276 


THE  BIGLOW  PATERS. 


cock  assures  us,  have  been  waiting  with 
feelings  of  lively  anticipation  ;  9th,  Mr. 
Hitchcock's  own  views  on  the  same  topic  ; 
and,  10th,  A  brief  essay  on  the  impor- 
tance of  local  histories.  It  will  be  appar- 
ent that  the  duty  of  preparing  Mr.  Wil- 
bur's biography  could  not  have  fallen 
into  more  sympathetic  hands. 

In  a  private  letter  with  which  the  rev- 
erend gentleman  has  since  favored  us,  he 
expresses  the  opinion  that  Mr.  Wilbur's 
life  was  shortened  by  our  unhappy  civil 
war.  It  disturbed  his  studies,  dislocated 
all  his  habitual  associations  and  trains  of 
thought,  and  unsettled  the  foundations  of 
a  faith,  rather  the  result  of  habit  than 
conviction,  in  the  capacity  of  man  tea- 
self-government.  "Such  has  been  the 
felicity  of  my  life,"  he  said  to  Mr.  Hitch- 
cock, on  the  very  morning  of  the  day  he 
died,  "  that,  through  the  divine  mercy,  I 
could  always  say,  Summum  nec  metuo 
diem,  nec  opto.  It  has  been  my  habit,  as 
you  know,  on  every  recurrence  of  this 
blessed  anniversary,  to  read  Milton's 
'  Hymn  of  the  Nativity'  till  its  sublime 
harmonies  so  dilated  my  soul  and  quick- 
ened its  spiritual  sense  that  I  seemed  to 
hear  that  other  song  which  gave  assurance 
to  the  shepherds  that  there  was  One  who 
would  lead  them  also  in  green  pastures 
and  beside  the  still  waters.  But  to-day  I 
have  been  unable  to  think  of  anything  but 
that  mournful  text,  'I  came  not  to  send 
peace,  but  a  sword,'  and,  did  it  not  smack 
of  pagan  presumptuousness,  could  almost 
wish  I  had  never  lived  to  see  this  day." 

Mr.  Hitchcock  also  informs  us  that  his 
friend  "lies  buried  in  the  Jaalam  grave- 
yard, under  a  large  red-cedar  which  he 
specially  admired.  A  neat  and  substan- 
tial monument  is  to  be  erected  over  his 
remains,  with  a  Latin  epitaph  written  by 
himself ;  for  he  was  accustomed  to  say, 
pleasantly,  '  that  there  was  at  least  one 
occasion  in  a  scholar's  life  when  he  might 
show  the  advantages  of  a  classical  train- 
ing." 

The  following  fragment  of  a  letter  ad- 
dressed to  us,  and  apparently  intended  to 
accompany  Mr.  Biglow's  contribution  to 
the  present  number,  was  found  upon  his 
table  after  his  decease.  —  Editors  Atlan- 
tic Monthly.] 


TO    THE    EDITORS     OP     THE  ATLANTIC 
MONTHLY. 

Jaat.am,  24th  Dec,  1862. 
Respected  Sirs, —The  infirm  state  of 
my  bodily  health  would  be  a  sufficient 
apology  for  not  taking  up  the  pen  at  this 


time,  wholesome  as  I  deem  it  for  the  mind 
to  apricate  in  the  shelter  of  epistolary  con- 
fidence, wTere  it  not  that  a  considerable,  I 
might  even  say  a  large,  number  of  individ- 
uals in  this  parish  expect  from  their  pas- 
tor some  publick  expression  of  sentiment 
at  this  crisis.  Moreover,  Qui  tacitus  ardet 
magis  uritur.  In  trying  times  like  these, 
the  besetting  sin  of  undisciplined  minds  is 
to  seek  refuge  from  inexplicable  realities 
in  the  dangerous  stimulant  of  angry  par- 
tisanship or  the  indolent  narcotick  of 
vague  and  hopeful  vaticination :  fortu- 
namque  suo  temperat  arbitrio.  Both  by 
reason  of  my  age  and  my  natural  temper- 
ament, I  am  unfitted  for  either.  Unable 
to  penetrate  the  inscrutable  judgments  of 
God,  I  am  more  than  ever  thankful  that 
my  life  has  been  prolonged  till  I  could 
in  some  small  measure  comprehend  His 
mercy.  As  there  is  no  man  who  does  not 
at  some  time  render  himself  amenable  to 
the  one,  —  quum  vix  justus  sit  seenrus,  — 
so  there  is  none  that  does  not  feel  himself 
in  daily  need  of  the  other. 

I  confess  I  caunot  feel,  as  some  do,  a 
personal  consolation  for  the  manifest  evils 
of  this  war  in  any  remote  or  contingent 
advantages  that  may  spring  from  it.  I  am 
old  and  weak,  I  can  bear  little,  and  can 
scarce  hope  to  see  better  days  ;  nor  is  it 
any  adequate  compensation  to  know  that 
Nature  is  old  and  strong  and  can  bear 
much.  Old  men  philosophize  over  the 
past,  but  the  present  is  only  a  burthen  and 
a  weariness.  The  one  lies  before  them  like 
a  placid  evening  landscape  ;  the  other  is 
full  of  the  vexations  and  anxieties  of  house- 
keeping. It  may  be  true  enough  that  mis- 
cet  hcec  illis,  prohibetque  Clotho  fortunam 
stare,  but  he  who  said  it  was  fain  at  last 
to  call  in  Atropos  with  her  shears  before 
her  time ;  and  I  cannot  help  selfishly 
mourning  that  the  fortune  of  our  Repub- 
lick  could  not  at  least  stand  till  my  days 
were  numbered. 

Tibullus  would  find  the  origin  of  wars  in 
the  great  exaggeration  of  riches,  and  does 
not  stick  to  say  that  in  the  days  of  the 
beechen  trencher  there  was  peace.  But 
averse  as  I  am  by  nature  from  all  wars, 
the  more  as  they  have  been  especially  fatal 
to  libraries,  I  would  have  this  one  go  on 
till  we  are  reduced  to  wooden  platters 
again,  rather  than  surrender  the  principle 
to  defend  which  it  was  undertaken.  Though 
I  believe  Slavery  to  have  been  the  cause  of 
it,  by  so  thoroughly  demoralizing  Northern 
politicks  for  its  owrf  purposes  as  to  give 
opportunity  and  hope  to  treason,  yet  I 
would  not  have  our  thought  and  purpose 
diverted  from  their  true  object,  —  the 
maintenance  of  the  idea  of  Government. 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


277 


We  are  not  merely  suppressing  an  enor- 
mous riot,  but  contending  for  thepossibility 
of  permanent  order  coexisting  with  denio- 
cratical  fickleness  ;  and  while  I  would  not 
superstitiously  venerate  form  to  the  sacri- 
fice of  substance,  neither  would  I  forget 
that  an  adherence  to  precedent  and  pre- 
scription can  alone  give  that  continuity 
and  coherence  under  a  democratical  consti- 
tution which  are  inherent  in  the  person  of 
a  despotick  monarch  and  the  selfishness  of 
an  aristocratical  class.  Stet  pro  ratione 
voluntas  is  as  dangerous  in  a  majority  as 
in  a  tyrant. 

I  cannot  allow  the  present  production  of 
my  young  friend  to  go  out  without  a  pro- 
test from  me  against  a  certain  extremeness 
in  his  views,  more  pardonable  in  the  poet 
than  the  philosopher.  While  I  agree  with 
\\\m%  that  the  only  cure  for  rebellion  is 
suppression  by  force,  yet  I  must  animad- 
vert upon  certain  phrases  where  I  seem  to 
see  a  coincidence  with  a  popular  fallacy  on 
the  subject  of  compromise.  On  the  one 
hand  there  are  those  who  do  not  see  that 
the  vital  principle  of  Government  and  the 
seminal  principle  of  Law  cannot  properly 
be  made  a  subject  of  compromise  at  all, 
and  on  the  other  those  who  are  equally 
blind  to  the  truth  that  without  a  com- 
promise of  individual  opinions,'interests, 
and  even  rights,  no  society  would  be  pos- 
sible. In  medio  tutissimtos.  For  my  own 
part,  I  would  gladly  


Ef  I  a  song  or  two  could  make 

Like   rockets   druv   by  their  own 
burnin', 

All  leap  an'  light,  to  leave  a  wake 
Men's    hearts    an'    faces  skyward 
turn  in'  !  — 
But,  it  strikes  me,  't  ain't  jest  the  time 
Fer  stringin'  words  with  settisfaction : 
Wut 's  wanted  now 's  the  silent  rhyme 
'Twixt  upright  Will  an'  downright 
Action. 

Words,  ef  you  keep  'em,  pay  their  keep, 

But  gabble  's  the  short  cut  to  ruin  ; 
It 's  gratis,  (gals  half-price,)  but  cheap 

At  no  rate,  ef  it  henders  doin'  ; 
Ther'  's  nothin'  wuss,  'less 't  is  to  set 

A  martyr-prem'um  upon  jawrin'  : 
Teapots  git  dangerous,  ef  you  shet 

Their  lids  down  en  'em  with  Fort 
Warren. 

'Bout  long  enough  it 's  ben  discussed 
Who  sot  the  magazine  afire, 


An'  whether,  ef  Bob  Wickliffe  bust, 
'T  would  scare  us  more  or  blow  us 
higher. 

D'  ye  s'pose  the  Gret  Foreseer's  plan 
Wuz  settled  fer  him  in  town-meetin'  ? 

Or  thet  ther'  'd  ben  no  Fall  o'  Man, 
Ef  Adam 'd  on'y  bit  a  sweetin'  ? 

Oh,  Jon'than,  ef  you  want  to  be 

A  rugged  chap  agin  an'  hearty, 
Go  fer  wutever  '11  hurt  Jeff'  D., 

Nut  wut  '11  boost  up  ary  party. 
Here 's  hell  broke  loose,  an'  we  lay  flat 

With  half  the  univarse  a-singein', 
Till  Sen'tor  This  an'  Gov'nor  Thet 

Stop  squabblin'  fer  the  garding-ingin. 

It 's  war  we  're  in,  not  politics  ; 

It 's  systems  wrastlin'  now,  not  parties ; 
An'  victory  in  the  eend  '11  fix 

Where  longest  will  an'  truest  heart  is. 
An'  wut 's  the  Guv'ment  folks  about  ? 

Tryin'  to  hope  ther'  's  nothin'  doin', 
An'  look  ez  though  they  did  n't  doubt 

Sunthin'  pertickler  wuz  a-brewin'. 

Ther'  's  critters  yit  thet  talk  an'  act 
Fer  wut  they  call  Conciliation  ; 

They 'd  hand  a  buff'lo-drove  a  tract 
When  they  wuz  madder  than  all 
Bashan. 

Conciliate  ?  it  jest  means  be  kicked, 
No  metter  how  they  phrase  an'  tone  it ; 

It  means  thet  we  're  to  set  down  licked, 
Thet  we  're  poor  shotes  an'  glad  to 
own  it  ! 

A  war  on  tick 's  ez  dear  'z  the  deuce, 

But  it  wun't  leave  no  lastin'  traces, 
Ez 't  would  to  make  a  sneakin'  truce 

Without  no  moral  specie-basis  : 
Ef  green-backs  ain't  nut  jest  the  cheese, 

1  guess  ther'  's  evils  thet 's  extremer,  — 
Fer  instance,  —  shinplaster  idees 

Like  them  put  out  by  Gov'nor  Sey- 
mour. 

Last  year,  the  Nation,  at  a  word, 

When   tremblin'  Freedom  cried  to 
shield  her, 
Flamed  weldin'  into  one  keen  sword 

Waitin'  an'  longin'  fer  a  wielder  : 
A  splendid  flash  !  — but  how 'd  the  grasp 

With  sech  a  chance  ez  thet  wuz  tally  ? 
Ther'  warn't  no  meanin'  in  our  clasp, — 

Half  this,  half  thet,  all  shilly-shally. 


278 


THE  BIGLOW  TAPERS. 


More  men  ?  More  Man  !   It 's  there  we 
fail ; 

Weak  plans  grow  weaker  yit  by 
lengthenin'  : 
Wut  use  in  addin'  to  the  tail, 

When  it 's  the  head 's  in  need  o' 
strengthenin1  ? 
We  wanted  one  thet  felt  all  Chief 

From  roots  o'  hair  to  sole  o'  stockin', 
Square-sot  with  thousan'-ton  belief 
In  him  an'  us,  ef  earth  went  rockin'  ! 

Ole  Hick'ry  would  n't  ha'  stood  see-saw 
'Bout  doin'  things  till  they  wuz  done 
with,  — 

He 'd  smashed  the  tables  o'  the  Law 
In  time  o'  need  to  load  his  gun  with  ; 

He  could  n't  see  but  jest  one  side,  — 
Ef  his,  't  wuz  God's,  an'  thet  wuz 
plenty  ; 

An'  so  his  "  Forrards  /"  multiplied 
An  army's  fightin'  weight  by  twenty. 

But  this  'ere  histin',  creak,  creak,  creak, 

Your  cappen's  heart  up  with  a  derrick, 
This  tryin'  to  coax  a  lightnin'-streak 

Out  of  a  half-discouraged  hay-rick, 
This  hangin'  on  mont'  arter  mont' 

Fer  one  sharp  purpose  'mongst  the 
twitter,  — 
1  tell  ye,  it  doos  kind  o'  stunt 

The  peth  and  sperit  of  a  critter. 

In  six  months  where  '11  the  People  be, 
Ef  leaders  look  on  revolution 

Ez  though  it  wuz  a  cup  o'  tea,  — 
Jest  social  el'ments  in  solution  ? 

This  weighin'  things  doos  wal  enough 
When  war  cools  down,  an'  comes  to 
writin'  ; 

But  while  it 's  makin',  the  true  stuff 
Is  pison-mad,  pig-headed  fightin'. 

Democ'acy  gives  every  man 

The  right  to  be  his  own  oppressor ; 

But  a  loose  Gov'ment  ain't  the  plan, 
Helpless  ez  spilled  beans  on  a  dresser : 

I  tell  ye  one  thing  we  might  larn 

From  them  smart  critters,  the  Seced- 
ers,  — 

Ef  bein'  right  \s  the  fust  consarn, 
The  'fore-the-fust 's  ca.st-iron  leaders. 

But  'pears  to  me  I  see  some  signs 
Thet  we  're  a-goin'  to  use  our  senses : 


Jeff  druv  us  into  these  hard  lines, 
An'  ough'  to  bear  his  halt'  th'  ex- 
penses ; 

Slavery 's  Secession's  heart  an'  will, 
South,  North,  East,  West,  where'er 
you  find  it, 
An'  ef  it  drors  into  War's  mill, 

D'  ye  say  them  thunder-stones  sha'  n't 
grind  it  ? 

D'  ye  s'pose,  ef  Jeff  giv  him  a  lick, 
Ole  Hick'ry 'd  tried  his  head  to  sof'n 

So 's 't  would  n't  hurt  thet  ebony  stick 
Thet 's  made  our  side  see  stars  so  of'n  ? 

" No !  "  he 'd  ha'  thundered,  "On  your 
knees, 

An'  own  one  flag,  one  road  to  glory ! 
Soft-heartedness,  in  times  like  these, 
Shows  sof  ness  in  the  upper  story !  " 

An'  why  should  we  kick  up  a  muss 

About  the  Pres'dunt's  proclamation  ? 
It  ain't  a-goin'  to  lib'rate  us, 

Ef  we  don't  like  emancipation : 
The  right  to  be  a  cussed  fool 

Is  safe  from  all  devices  human, 
It 's  common  (ez  a  gin'l  rule) 

To  every  critter  born  o'  woman. 

So  we  're  all  right,  an'  I,  fer  one, 

Don't  think  our  cause  '11  lose  in  vally 
By  rammin'  Scriptur'  in  our  gun, 

An'  gittin'  Natur'  fer  an  ally  : 
Thank  God,  say  I,  fer  even  a  plan 

To  lift  one  human  bein's  level, 
Give  one  more  chance  to  make  a  man, 

Or,  anyhow,  to  spile  a  devil ! 

Not  thet  I  'm  one  thet  much  expec' 
Millennium  by  express  to-morrer ; 

They  vrill  miscarry,  —  I  rec'lec' 
Tu  many  on  'em,  to  my  sorrer  : 

Men  ain't 'made  angels  in  a  day, 

No  matter  how  you  mould  an'  labor 
'em,  — 

Nor  'riginal  ones,  I  guess,  don't  stay 
With  Abe  so  of  n  ez  with  Abraham. 

The'ry  thinks  Fact  a  pooty  thing, 
An'  wants  the  banns  read  right  en- 
suin'  ; 

But  fact  wun't  noways  wear  the  ring, 
'Thout  years  o'  settin'  up  an'  wooin'  : 

Though,  arter  all,  Time's  dial-plate 
Marks  cent'ries  with  the  minute-fin- 
ger, 

An'  Good  can't  never  come  tu  late, 
Though  it  doos  seem  to  try  an'  linger. 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


279 


An'  come  wut  will,  1  think  it 's  grand 
Abe 's  gut  his  will  et  last  bloom-liir- 
naced 

In  trial-flames  till  it'll  stand 

The  strain  o'  bein'  in  deadly  earnest : 
Thet 's  wut  we  want,  —  we  want  to 
know 

The  folks  on  our  side  hez  the  bravery 
To  b'lieve  ez  hard,  come  weal,  come  woe, 
In  Freedom  ez  Jeff  doos  in  Slavery. 

Set  the  two  forces  foot  to  foot, 

An'  every  man  knows  who  '11  be  win- 
ner, 

Whose  faith  in  God  hez  ary  root 

Thet  goes  down  deeper  than  his  din- 
ner : 

Then 't  will  be  felt  from  pole  to  pole, 
Without  no  need  o'  proclamation, 

Earth's  biggest  Country 's  gut  her  soul 
An'  risen  up  Earth's  Greatest  Nation  ! 


No.  VIII. 
KETTELOPOTOMACHIA. 

PRELIMINARY  NOTE. 

In  the  month  of  February,  1866,  the 
editors  of  the  "Atlantic  Monthly"  re- 
ceived from  the  Rev.  Mr.  Hitchcock  of 
Jaalam  a  letter  enclosing  the  macaronic 
verses  which  follow,  and  promising  to  send 
more,  if  more  should  be  communicated. 
"  They  were  rapped  out  on  the  evening  of 
Thursday  last  past,"  he  says,  "by  what 
claimed  to  be  the  spirit  of  my  late  prede- 
cessor in  the  ministry  here,  the  Rev.  Dr. 
Wilbur,  through  the  medium  of  a  young 
man  at  present  domiciled  in  my  family. 
As  to  the  possibility  of  such  spiritual 
manifestations,  or  whether  they  be  prop- 
erly so  entitled,  I  express  no  opinion,  as 
there  is  a  division  of  sentiment  on  that 
subject  in  the  parish,  and  many  persons 
of  the  highest  respectability  in  social  stand- 
ing entertain  opposing  views.  The  young 
man  who  was  improved  as  a  medium  sub- 
mitted himself  to  the  experiment  with 
manifest  reluctance,  and  is  still  unprepared 
to  believe  in  the  authenticity  of  the  mani- 
festations. During  his  residence  with  me 
his  deportment  has  always  been  exemplary  ; 
he  has  been  constant  in  his  attendance 
upon  our  family  devotions  and  the  public 
ministrations  of  the  Word,  and  has  more 
than  once  privately  stated  to  me,  that  the 
latter  had  often  brought  him  under  deep 
concern  of  mind.  The  table  is  an  ordinary 


quadrupedal  one,  weighing  about  thirty 
pounds,  three  feet  seven  inches  and  a  half 
in  height,  four  feet  square  on  the  top,  and 
of  beech  or  maple,  I  am  not  definitely  pre- 
pared to  say  which.  It  had  once  belonged 
to  my  respected  predecessor,  and  had  been, 
so  far  as  I  can  learn  upon  careful  inquiry, 
of  perfectly  regular  and  correct  habits  up 
to  the  evening  in  question.  On  that  occa- 
sion the  young  man  previously  alluded  to 
had  been  sitting  with  his  hands  resting 
carelessly  upon  it,  while  I  read  over  to  him 
at  his  request  certain  portions  of  my  last 
Sabbath's  discourse.  On  a  sudden  the  rap- 
pings,  as  they  are  called,  commenced  to 
render  themselves  audible,  at  first  faintly, 
but  in  process  of  time  more  distinctly  and 
with  violent  agitation  of  the  table.  Th6 
young  man  expressed  himself  both  sur- 
prised and  pained  by  the  wholly  unex- 
pected, and,  so  far  as  he  was  concerned, 
unprecedented  occurrence.  At  the  earnest 
solicitation,  however,  of  several  who  hap- 
pened to  be  present,  he  consented  to  go  on 
with  the  experiment,  and  with  the  assist- 
ance of  the  alphabet  commonly  employed 
in  similar  emergencies,  the  following  com- 
munication was  obtained  and  written  down 
immediately  by  myself.  Whether  any, 
and  if  so,  how  much  weight  should  be  at- 
tached to  it,  I  venture  no  decision.  That 
Dr.  Wilbur  had  sometimes  employed  his 
leisure  in  Latin  versification  I  have  ascer- 
tained to  be  the  case,  though  all  that  has 
been  discovered  of  that  nature  among  his 
papers  consists  of  some  fragmentary  pas- 
sages of  a  version  into  hexameters  of  por- 
tions of  the  Song  of  Solomon.  These  I  had 
communicated  about  a  week  or  ten  days 
previous  [ly]  to  the  young  gentleman  who 
officiated  as  medium  in  the  communica- 
tion afterwards  received.  I  have  thus,  I  be- 
lieve, stated  all  the  material  facts  that  have 
any  elucidative  bearing  upon  this  myste- 
rious occurrence." 

So  far  Mr.  Hitchcock,  who  seems  per- 
fectly master  of  Webster's  unabridged 
quarto,  and  whose  flowing  style  leads  him 
into  certain  further  expatiations  for  which 
we  have  not  room.  We  have  since  learned 
that  the  young  man  he  speaks  of  was  a 
sophomore,  put  under  his  care  during  a 

sentence  of  rustication  from  College, 

where  he  had  distinguished  himself  rather 
by  physical  experiments  on  the  compara- 
tive power  of  resistance  in  window-glass 
to  various  solid  substances,  than  in  the 
more  regular  studies  of  the  place.  In  an- 
swer to  a  letter  of  inquiry,  the  professor  of 
Latin  says,  "There  was  no  harm  in  the 
boy  that  I  know  of  beyond  his  loving  mis- 
chief more  than  Latin,  nor  can  I  think  of 
any  spirits  likely  to  possess  him  except 


280 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


those  commonly  called  anim.il.  He  was 
certainly  not  remarkable  for  his  Latinity, 
but  I  see  nothing  in  the  verses  you  enclose 
that  would  lead  me  to  think  them  beyond 
his  capacity,  or  the  result  of  any  special 
inspiration  whether  of  beech  or  maple. 
Had  that  of  birch  been  tried  upon  him  ear- 
lier and  more  faithfully,  the  verses  would 
perhaps  have  been  better  in  quality  and 
certainly  in  quantity."  This  exact  and 
thorough  scholar  then  goes  on  to  point  out 
many  false  quantities  and  barbarisms.  It 
is  but  fair  to  say,  however,  that  the  author, 
whoever  he  was,  seems  not  to  have  been 
unaware  of  some  of  them  himself,  as  is 
shown  by  a  great  many  notes  appended  to 
the  verses  as  we  received  them,  and  pur- 
porting to  be  by  Scaliger,  Bentley  and 
others,  —  among  them  the  Esprit  de  Vol- 
taire I  These  we  have  omitted  as  clearly 
meant  to  be  humorous  and  altogether  fail- 
ing therein. 

Though  entirely  satisfied  that  the  verses 
are  altogether  unworthy  of  Mr.  Wilbur, 
who  seems  to  have  been  a  tolerable  Latin 
scholar  after  the  fashion  of  his  day,  yet  we 
have  determined  to  print  them  here  partly 
as  belonging  to  the  res  gestae  of  this  collec- 
tion, and  partly  as  a  warning  to  their  pu- 
tative author  which  may  keep  him  from 
such  indecorous  pranks  for  the  future. 


KETTELOPOTOMACHIA. 

P.  Ovidii  Nasoriis  carmen  heroicum  maca- 
ronicum  perplexametrum,  inter  Getas  getico 
more  compostum,  denuo  per  medium  arden- 
tispiritualem,  adjuvante  mensa  diabolice  ob- 
sessa,  recuperatum,  curaque  Jo.  Conradi 
Sehwarzii  umbra,  aliis  necnon  plurimis  adju- 
vantibus,  restitutum. 

LIBER  I. 

Punctorum  garretos  colens  et  cellara 
Quinque, 

Gutteribus  qu?e  et  gaudes  sundayam 

abstingere  frontem, 
Plerumque  insidos  solita  fluitare  liquore 
Tanglepedem  quern  homines  appellant 

Di  quoque  rotgut, 
Pimpliidis,   rubicundaque,    Musa,  0, 

bourbonolensque,  5 
Fenianas  rixas  procul,  alma,  brogipo- 

tentis 

Patricii   cyathos   iterantis   et  horrida 
bella, 

Backos  (him  virides  viridis  Brigitta  re- 
mittit, 


Linquens,  eximios  celcbrem,  da,  Vir- 
ginienses 

Rowdes,  prrecipue  et  Te,  heros  alte, 
Polarde  !  10 

Insignes  juvenesque,  illo  certamine 
lictos, 

Colemane,  Tylere,  nec  vos  oblivione 
relinquam. 

Ampla  aquil?e  invictte  fausto  est  sub 

tegmine  terra, 
Backyfer,    ooiskeo   pollens,  ebenoque 

bipede, 

Socors  prresidum  et  altrix  (denique 
quidruminantium),  15 

Duplefveorum  uberrima  ;  illis  et  integre 
cordi  est 

Deplere  assidue  et  sine  proprio  incom- 

modo  fiscum  ; 
Nunc  etiam  placidum  hoc  opus  in- 

victique  secuti, 
Goosam  aureos  ni  eggos  voluissent  im- 

mo  necare 
Quse  peperit,  saltern  ac  de  illis  meliora 

merentem.  20 
Condidit  hanc  Smithius  Dux,  Cap- 

tinus  inclytus  ille 
Regis  Ulyssse  instar,  docti  arcum  in- 

tendere  longum  ; 
Condidit  ille  Johnsmith,  Virginiamque 

vocavit, 

Settledit  autem  Jacobus  rex,  nomine 
primus, 

Rascalis  implens  ruptis,  blagardisque 
deboshtis,  *25 

Militibusque  ex  Falstaffi  legione  fnga- 
tis 

Wenchisque  illi  quas  poterant  seducere 
nuptas  ; 

Virgin  eum,  ah,  littus  matronis  talibus 
impar  ! 

Progeniem  stirpe  ex  hoc  non  sine  stig- 

mate  ducunt 
Multi  sese  qui  jactant  regum  esse  ne- 

potes  :  30 
Haud  omnes,  Mater,  genitos  qua3  nuper 

habebas 

Bello  fortes,  consilio  cantos,  virtute 
decoros, 

Jamque  et  habes,  sparso  si  patrio  in 

sanguine  virtus, 
Mostrabisque  iterum,  antiquis  sub  astris 

reducta  ! 

De  illis  qui  upkikitant,  dicebam,  rum- 
pora  tanta,  35 

Letcheris  et  Floydis  magnisque  Extra 
ordine  Billis  ; 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


281 


Est  his  prisca  fides  jurare  et  breakere 
wordum  ; 

Poppere  fellerum  a  tergo,  aut  stickere 

clam  bowiknifo, 
Haud  sane  faeinus,  dignum  sed  victrice 

lanro  ; 

Larrupere  et  nigerum,  factum  prsestan- 
tius  ullo  :  40 

Ast  chlamydem  piciplumatam,  Icariam, 
flito  et  ineptam, 

Yanko  gratis  induere,  ilium  et  valido 
railo 

Insuper  acri  equitare  docere  est  hospitio 
uti. 

Nescio  an  ille  Polardus  duplefveoribus 
ortus, 

S»ed  reputo  potius  de  radice  poorwite- 
manorum ;  45 
Fortuiti  proles,  ni  fallor,  Tylerus  erat 
Pnesidis,  omnibus  ab  Whiggis  nominatus 
a  poor  cuss  ; 
^Et  nobilem  tertium  evincit  venerabile 
nomen. 

Ast  animosi  omnes  bellique  ad  tympana 
ha  !  ha ! 

Vociferant  lseti,  procul  et  si  prcelia, 
sive  50 

Hostem  incautum  atsito  possunt  shoot  - 
ere  salvi ; 

Imperiique  capaces,  esset  si  stylus 
agmen, 

Pro  dulci  spoliabant  et  sine  dangere  fito. 
Pra3  ceterisque  Polardus :   si  Secessia 
licta, 

Se  nunquam  licturum  jurat,  res  et  un- 
heardof,  55 

Verbo  haesit,  similisque  audaci  roosteri 
invicto, 

Dunghilli  solitus  rex  pullos  whoppere 
molles, 

Gran  turn,  hirelingos  stripes  quique  et 

splendida  tollunt 
Sidera,  et  Yankos,  territum  et  omnem 

sarsuit  orbem. 
Usque  dabant   operam   isti  omnes, 

noctesque  diesque,  60 
Samuelem   demulgere  avunculum,  id 

vero  siccum  ; 
Uberihus  sed  ejus,  et  horum  est  culpa, 

remotis, 

Parvam  domi  vaccam,  nec  mora  minima, 
qurerunt, 

Lacticarentem  autem  et  droppam  vix 

in  die  dantem  ; 
Reddite  avunculi,  et  exclamabant,  red- 

dite  pappam  !  65 


Polko  ut  consule,  gemens,  Billy  im- 
murmurat  Extra  ; 

Echo  respondit,  thesauro  ex  vacuo,  pap- 
pam ! 

Frustra  explorant  pocketa,  ruber  nare 

repertum  ; 
Officia  expulsi  aspiciunt  rapta,  et  Para- 

disum 

Occlusum,  viridesque  haud  illis  nascere 
backos ;  70 

Stupent  tunc  oculis  madidis  spittantque 
silenter. 

Adhibere  usu  ast  longo  vires  prorsus 
inepti, 

Si  non  ut  qui  grindeat  axve  trabemve 
reuolvat, 

Virginiam  excruciant  totis  nunc  might- 
ibu'  matrem  ; 

Non  melius,  puta,  nono  panis  dimid- 
iumne  est  ?  75 
Readere  ibi  non  posse  est  casus  com- 
moner ullo  ; 

Tanto  intentius  imprimere  est  opus  ergo 
statuta  ; 

Nemo  propterea  pejor,  melior,  sine 
doubto, 

Obtineat  qui  contractum,  si  et  postea 
rhino  ; 

Ergo  Polardus,  si  quis,  inexsuperabilis 
heros,  SO 

Colemanus  impavidus  nondum,  atque 
in  purpure  natus 

Tylerus  Iohanides  celerisque  in  flito 
Nathaniel, 

Quisque  optans  digitos  in  tan  turn  stick- 
ere pium, 

Adstant  accincti  imprimere  aut  perrum- 

pere  leges  : 
Quales  os  miserum  rabidi  tres  segre 

molossi,  85 
Quales  aut  dubium  textum  atra  in  veste 

ministri, 

Tales  circumstabant  nunc  nostri  inopes 
hoc  job. 

Hisque   Polardus  voce  canoro  talia 
fatus  : 

Primum  autem,  veluti  est  mos,  prseceps 

quisque  liquorat, 
Quisque  et  Nicotianum  ingens  quid 

inserit  atrum,  90 
Heroum  nitidum  decus  et  solamen  avi- 

tum, 

Masticat  ac  simul  altisonans,  spittatque 
profuse  : 

Quis  de  Virginia  meruit  prrestantius 
unquam  ? 

Quis  se  pro  patria  curavit  impigre  tutum  ? 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


282 

Speechisque  articulisque  hominum  quis 
fortior  alius,  05 

Ingeminans  penna3  lickos  et  vulnera 
vocis  ? 

Quisnam  putidius  (hie)  sarsuit  Yanki- 
nimicos, 

Ssepius  aut  dedit  ultro  datam  et  broke 

his  parolam  ? 
Mente  inquassatus  solidaque,  tyranno 

minante, 

Horrisonis  (hie)  bombis  moenia  et  alta 

quatente,  100 
Sese  promptum  (hie)  jactans  Yankos 

liekere  eentum, 
Atque  ad  lastum  invictus  non  surrendi- 

dit  unquam  ? 
Ergo  hand  nieddlite,  posco,  mique  re- 

linquite  (hie)  hoc  job, 
Si  non  —  knifumque  enormem  mostrat 

spittatque  tremendus. 
Dixerat  :  ast  alii  reliquorant  et  sine 

pauso  105 
Pluggos  incumbunt  maxillis,  uterque 

vicissim 

Certamine  innocuo  valde  madidam  m- 

quinat  assem  : 
Tylerus  autem,  dumque  liquorat  aridus 

hostis, 

Mirum   aspicit  duplumque  bibentem, 

astante  Lyaeo  ; 
Ardens  impavidusque  edidit  tamen  im- 

pia  verba  ;  110 
Duplum  quamvis  te  aspicio,  esses  atque 

viginti, 

Mendacem    dicerem    totumque  (hie) 

thrasherem  acervum  ; 
Kempe  et  thrasham,  doggonatus  (hie) 

sim  nisi  faxem; 
Lambastabo  omnes  catawoinpositer-(hic) 

que  chawam  ! 
Dixit  et  impulsus  Ryeo  ruitur  bene  ti- 

tus,  115 
I  Hi  nan)  gravidum  caput  et  laterem 

habet  in  hatto. 
Hunc  inhiat  titubansque  Polardus, 

optat  et  ilium 
Stickere  inermem,  protegit  autem  rite 

Lyeeus, 

Et  pronos  geminos,  oculis  dubitantibus, 

heros 

Cernit  et  irritus  hostes,  dumque  excogi- 
tat  utrum  120 

Primum  inpitchere,  corruit,  inter  utros- 
que  recumbit, 

Magno  asino  similis  nimio  sub  pondere 
quassus  : 


Colemanus  hos  mcestus,  triste  ruminans- 

que  solamen, 
Inspicit  hiccans,  circumspittat  terque 

cubantes  ; 

Funereisque  his  ritibus  humidis  inde 
solutis,  J2) 

Sternitur,  invalidusque  illis  superincidit 
in  fans  ; 

Hos  sepelit  somnus  et  snorunt  corniso- 
nantes, 

Watchmanus  inscios  ast  calyboosodeinde 
xeponit. 


No.  IX. 

[The  Editors  of  the  "Atlantic"  have 
received  so  many  letters  of  inquiry  con- 
cerning the  literary  remains  of  the  late  Mr. 
Wilbur,  mentioned  by  his  colleague  and 
successor,  Rev.  Jeduthan  Hitchcock,  in  a 
communication  from  which  we  made  some 
extracts  in  our  number  for  February,  1 863, 
and  have  been  so  repeatedly  urged  to  print 
some  part  of  them  for  the  gratification  of 
the  public,  that  they  felt  it  their  duty  at 
least  to  make  some  effort  to  satisfy  so  ur- 
gent a  demand.  They  have  accordingly 
carefully  examined  the  papers  intrusted  to 
them,  but  find  most  of  the  productions  of 
Mr.  Wilbur's  pen  so  fragmentary,  and  even 
chaotic,  written  as  they  are  on  the  backs 
of  letters  in  an  exceedingly  cramped  chi- 
rography,  —  here  a  memorandum  for  a  ser- 
mon ;  there  an  observation  of  the  weather  ; 
now  the  measurement  of  an  extraordinary 
head  of  cabbage,  and  then  of  the  cerebral 
capacit  y  of  some  reverend  brother  deceased ; 
a  calm  inquiry  into  the  state  of  modern 
literature,  ending  in  a  method  of  detecting 
if  milk  be  impoverished  with  water,  and 
the  amount  thereof ;  one  leaf  beginning 
with  a  genealogy,  to  be  interrupted  half- 
way down  with  an  entry  that  the  brindle 
cow  had  calved, — that  any  attempts  at 
selection  seemed  desperate.  His  only  com- 
plete work,  "  An  Enquiry  concerning  the 
Tenth  Horn  of  the  Beast,"  even  in  the  ab- 
stract of  it  given  by  Mr.  Hitchcock,  would, 
by  a  rough  computation  of  the  printers, 
fill  five  entire  numbers  of  our  journal,  and 
as  he  attempts,  by  a  new  application  of 
decimal  fractions,  to  identify  it  with  the 
Emperor  Julian,  seems  hardly  of  immedi- 
ate concern  to  the  general  reader.  Even 
the  Table-Talk,  though  doubtless  origi- 
nally highly  interesting  in  the  domestic 
circle,  is  so  largely  made  up  of  theological 
discussion  and  matters  of  local  or  preterite 
interest,  that  we  have  found  it  hard  to  ex- 
tract anything  that  would  at  all  satisfy 
expectation.    But,  in  order  to  silence  fur- 


THE  BIGLOW  PATERS. 


283 


tlier  inquiry,  we  subjoin  a  few  passages  as 
illustrations  of  its  general  character.] 

I  think  I  could  go  near  to  be  a  perfect 
Christian  if  I  were  always  a  visitor,  as  I 
have  sometimes  been,  at  the  house  of  some 
hospitable  friend.  I  can  show  a  great  deal 
of  self-denial  where  the  best  of  everything 
is  urged  upon  me  with  kindly  importunity. 
It  is  not  so  very  hard  to  turn  the  other 
cheek  for  a  kiss.  And  when  I  meditate 
upon  the  pains  taken  for  our  entertain- 
ment in  this  life,  on  the  endless  variety  of 
seasons,  of  human  character  and  fortune, 
on  the  costliness  of  the  hangings  and  fur- 
niture of  our  dwelling  here,  I  sometimes 
feel  a  singular  joy  in  looking  upon  myself 
as  God's  guest,  and  cannot  but  believe  that 
we  should  all  be  wiser  and  happier,  be- 
cause more  grateful,  if  we  were  always 
mindful  of  our  privilege  in  this  regard. 
And  should  we  not  rate  more  cheaply  any 
honor  that  men  could  pay  us,  if  we  remem- 
bered that  every  day  we  sat  at  the  table  of 
the  Great  King  \  Yet  must  we  not  forget 
that  we  are  in  strictest  bonds  His  servants 
also  ;  for  there  is  no  impiety  so  abject  as 
that  which  expects  to  be  dead-headed  (ut 
ita  dicam)  through  life,  and  which,  calling 
itself  trust  in  Providence,  is  in  reality  ask- 
ing Providence  to  trust  us  and  taking  up 
all  our  goods  on  false  pretences.  It  is  a 
wise  rule  to  take  the  world  as  we  find  it, 
not  always  to  leave  it  so. 

It  has  often  set  me  thinking  when  I  find 
that  1  can  always  pick  up  plenty  of  empty 
nuts  under  my  shagbark-tree.  The  squir- 
rels know  them  by  their  lightness,  and  I 
have  seldom  seen  one  with  the  marks  of 
their  teeth  in  it.  What  a  school-house  is 
the  world,  if  our  wits  would  only  not  play 
truant !  For  I  observe  that  men  set  most 
store  by  forms  and  symbols  in  proportion 
as  they  are  mere  shells.  It  is  the  outside 
they  want  and  not  the  kernel.  What  stores 
of  such  do  not  many,  who  in  material 
things  are  as  shrewd  as  the  squirrels,  lay 
up  for  the  spiritual  winter-supply  of  them- 
selves and  their  children  !  I  have  seen 
churches  that  seemed  to  me  garners  of  these 
withered  nuts,  for  it  is  wonderful  how  pro- 
saic is  the  apprehension  of  symbols  by  the 
minds  of  most  men.  It  is  not  one  sect  nor 
another,  but  all,  who,  like  the  dog  of  the 
fable,  have  let  drop  the  spiritual  substance 
of  symbols  for  their  material  shadow.  If 
one  attribute  miraculous  virtues  to  mere 
holy  water,  that  beautiful  emblem  of  in- 
ward purification  at  the  door  of  God's  house, 
another  cannot  comprehend  the  significance 
of  baptism  without  being  ducked  over  head 
and  ears  in  the  liquid  vehicle  thereof. 


[Perhaps  a  word  of  historical  comment 
may  be  permitted  here.  My  late  revered 
predecessor  was,  I  Avould  humbly  affirm, 
as  free  from  prejudice  as  falls  to  the  lot  of 
the  most  highly  favored  individuals  of  our 
species.  To  be  sure,  I  have  heard  him  say 
that,  "what  were  called  strong  prejudices, 
were  in  fact  only  the  repulsion  of  sensitive 
organizations  from  that  moral  and  even 
physical  effluvium  through  which  some 
natures  by  providential  appointment,  like 
certain  unsavory  quadrupeds,  gave  warn- 
ing of  their  neighborhood.  Better  ten 
mistaken  suspicions  of  this  kind  than  one 
close  encounter."  This  he  said  somewhat 
in  heat,  on  being  questioned  as  to  his  mo- 
tives for  always  refusing  his  pulpit  to  those 
itinerant  professors  of  vicarious  benevo- 
lence who  end  their  discourses  by  taking 
up  a  collection.  But  at  another  time  I 
remember  his  saying,  "that  there  was  one 
large  thing  which  small  minds  always  found 
room  for,  and  that  was  great  prejudices." 
This,  however,  by  the  way.  The  state- 
ment which  I  purposed  to  make  was  simply 
this.  Down  to  a.  d.  1830,  Jaalam  had 
consisted  of  a  single  parish,  with  one  house 
set  apart  for  religious  services.  In  that 
year  the  foundations  of  a  Baptist  Society 
were  laid  by  the  labors  of  Elder  Joash  Q. 
Balcom,  2d.  As  the  members  of  the  new 
body  wrere  drawn  from  the  First  Parish, 
Mr.  Wilbur  was  for  a  time  considerably 
exercised  in  mind.  He  even  went  so  far 
as  on  one  occasion  to  follow  the  reprehen- 
sible practice  of  the  earlier  Puritan  divines 
in  choosing  a  punning  text,  and  preached 
from  Hebrews  xiii.  9:  "Be  not  carried 
about  with  divers  and  strange  doctrines." 
He  afterwards,  in  accordance  with  one  of 
his  own  maxims,  —  "  to  get  a  dead  injury 
out  of  the  mind  as  soon  as  is  decent,  bury 
it,  and  then  ventilate,"  —  in  accordance 
with  this  maxim,  I  say,  he  lived  on  very 
friendly  terms  with  Rev.  Shearjashub 
Scrimgour,  present  pastor  of  the  Baptist 
Society  in  Jaalam.  Yet  I  think  it  was 
never  unpleasing  to  him  that  the  church 
edifice  of  that  society  (though  otherwise  a 
creditable  specimen  of  architecture)  re- 
mained without  a  bell,  as  indeed  it  does  to 
this  day.  So  much  seemed  necessary  to 
do  away  with  any  appearance  of  acerbity 
toward  a  respectable  community  of  pro- 
fessing Christians,  which  might  be  sus- 
pected in  the  conclusion  of  the  above  para- 
graph. —  J.  H.] 

In  lighter  moods  he  was  not  averse  from 
an  innocent  play  upon  words.  Looking 
up  from  his  newspaper  one  morning  as  I 
entered  his  study  he  said,  "When  I  read 
a  debate  in  Congress,  I  feel  as  if  I  were 


284 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


sitting  at  the  feet  of  Zeno  in  the  shadow 
of  the  Portico."  On  my  expressing  a  nat- 
ural surprise,  he  added,  smiling,  ''Why, 
at  such  times  the  only  view  which  honora- 
ble members  give  me  of  what  goes  on  in 
the  world  is  through  their  intercalumnia- 
tions."  I  smiled  at  this  after  a  moment's 
reflection,  and  he  added  gravely,  "The 
most  punctilious  refinement  of  manners  is 
the  only  salt  that  will  keep  a  democracy 
from  stinking  ;  and  what  are  we  to  expect 
from  the  people,  if  their  representatives 
set  them  such  lessons?  Mr.  Everett's 
whole  life  has  been  a  sermon  from  this 
text.  There  was,  at.  least,  this  advantage 
in  duelling,  that  it  set  a  certain  limit  on 
the  tongue."  In  this  connection,  I  may 
be  permitted  to  recall  a  playful  remark  of 
his  upon  another  occasion.  The  painful 
divisions  in  the  First  Parish,  a.  d.  1844, 
occasioned  by  the  wild  notions  in  respect 
to  the  rights  of  (what  Mr.  Wilbur,  so  far 
as  concerned  the  reasoning  faculty,  always 
called)  the  unfairer  part  of  creation,  put 
forth  by  Miss  Parthenia  Almira  Fitz,  are 
too  well  known  to  need  more  than  a  pass- 
ing allusion.  It  was  during  these  heats, 
long  since  happily  allayed,  that  Mr.  Wil- 
bur remarked  that  "  the  Church  had  more 
trouble  in  dealing  with  one  s/ieresiarch 
than  with  twenty  foresiarchs,"  and  that 
the  men's  conscia  recti,  or  certainty  of  be- 
ing right,  was  nothing  to  the  women's. 

When  I  once  asked  his  opinion  of  a  po- 
etical composition  on  which  I  had  expended 
no  little  pains,  he  read  it  attentively,  and 
then  remarked,  "  Unless  one's  thought  pack 
more  neatly  in  verse  than  in  prose,  it  is 
wiser  to  refrain.  Commonplace  gains  noth- 
ing by  being  translated  into  rhyme,  for  it 
is  something  which  no  hocus-pocus  can 
transubstantiate  with  the  real  presence  of 
living  thought.  You  entitle  your  piece, 
'  My  Mother's  Grave,'  and  expend  four 
pages  of  useful  paper  in  detailing  your 
emotions  there.  But,  my  dear  sir,  water- 
ing does  not  improve  the  quality  of  ink, 
even  though  you  should  do  it  with  tears. 
To  publish  a  sorrow  to  Tom,  Dick,  and 
Harry  is  in  some  sort  to  advertise  its  unre- 
ality, for  I  have  observed  in  my  intercourse 
with  the  afflicted  that  the  deepest  grief  in- 
stinctively hides  its  face  with  its  hands 
and  is  silent.  If  your  piece  were  printed, 
I  have  no  doubt  it  would  be  popular,  for 
people  like  to  fancy  that  they  feel  much 
better  than  the  trouble  of  feeling.  I  would 
put  all  poets  on  oath  whether  they  have 
striven  to  say  everything  they  possibly 
could  think  of,  or  to  leave  out  all  they 
could  not  help  saying.  In  your  own  case, 
my  worthy  young  friend,  what  you  have 


written  is  merely  a  deliberate  exercise,  the 
gymnastic  of  sentiment.  For  your  excel- 
lent maternal  relative  is  still  alive,  and  is 
to  take  tea  with  me  this  evening,  D.  V.  Be- 
ware of  simulated  feeling  ;  it  is  hypocrisy's 
first  cousin  ;  it  is  especially  dangerous  to 
a  preacher  ;  for  he  who  says  one  day,  'Go 
to,  let  me  seem  to  be  pathetic,'  may  be 
nearer  than  he  thinks  to  saying,  1  Go  to, 
let  me  seem  to  be  virtuous,  or  earnest,  or 
under  sorrow  for  sin.'  Depend  upon  it, 
Sappho  loved  her  verses  more  sincerely  than 
she  did  Phaon,  and  Petrarch  his  sonnets 
better  than  Laura,  who  was  indeed  but  his 
poetical  stalking-horse.  After  you  shall 
have  once  heard  that  muffled  rattle  of  the 
clods  on  the  coffin-lid  of  an  irreparable  loss, 
you  will  grow  acquainted  with  a  pathos 
that  will  make  all  elegies  hateful.  When 
I  was  of  your  age,  I  also  for  a  time  mistook 
my  desire  to  write  verses  for  an  authentic 
call  of  my  nature  in  that  direction.  But 
one  day  as  I  was  going  forth  for  a  walk, 
with  my  head  full  of  an  4  Elegy  on  the 
Death  of  Flirtilla,'  and  vainly  groping  after 
a  rhyme  for  lily  that  should  not  be  silly  or 
chilly,  I  saw  my  eldest  boy  Homer  busy 
over  the  rain-water  hogshead,  in  that  child- 
ish experiment  at  parthenogenesis,  the 
changing  a  horse-hair  into  a  water-snake. 
An  immersion  of  six  weeks  showed  no 
change  in  the  obstinate  filament.  Here 
was  a  stroke  of  unintended  sarcasm.  Had 
I  not  been  doing  in  my  study  precisely 
what  my  boy  was  doing  out  of  doors  ? 
Had  my  thoughts  any  more  chance  of  com- 
ing to  life  by  being  submerged  in  rhyme 
than  his  hair  by  soaking  in  water  ?  I 
burned  my  elegy  and  took  a  course  of  Ed- 
wards on  the  Will.  People  do  not  make 
poetry  ;  it  is  made  out  of  them  by  a  pro- 
cess for  which  I  do  not  find  myself  fitted. 
Nevertheless,  the  writing  of  verses  is  a 
good  rhetorical  exercitation,  as  teaching  us 
what  to  shun  most  carefully  in  prose.  For 
prose  bewitched  is  like  window-glass  with 
bubbles  in  it,  distorting  what  it  should 
show  with  pellucid  veracity." 

It  is  unwise  to  insist  on  doctrinal  points 
as  vital  to  religion.  The  Bread  of  Life 
is  wholesome  and  sufficing  in  itself,  but 
gulped  down  with  these  kick-shaws  cooked 
up  by  theologians,  it  is  apt  to  produce  an 
indigestion,  nay,  even  at  last  an  incurable 
dyspepsia  of  scepticism. 

One  of  the  most  inexcusable  weaknesses 
of  Americans  is  in  signing  their  names  to 
what  are  called  credentials.  But  for  my 
interposition,  a  person  who  shall  be  name- 
less would  have  taken  from  this  town  a 
recommendation  for  an  office  of  trust  sub- 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


285 


scribed  by  the  selectmen  and  all  the  voters 
of  both  parties,  ascribing  to  him  as  many 
good  qualities  as  if  it  had  been  his  tomb- 
stone. The  excuse  was  that  it  would  be 
well  for  the  town  to  be  rid  of  him,  as  it 
would  erelong  be  obliged  to  maintain  him. 
I  would  not  refuse  my  name  to  modest 
merit,  but  I  would  be  as  cautious  as  in  sign- 
ing a  bond.  [I  trust  I  shall  be  subjected 
to  no  imputation  of  unbecoming  vanity, 
if  I  mention  the  fact  that  Mr.  W.  indorsed 
my  own  qualifications  as  teacher  of  the 
high-school  at  Pequash  Junction.  J.  H.] 
When  I  see  a  certificate  of  character  with 
everybody's  name  to  it,  I  regard  it  as  a 
letter  of  introduction  from  the  Devil. 
Never  give  a  man  your  name  unless  you  are 
willing  to  trust  him  with  your  reputation. 

./There  seem  nowadays  to  be  two  sources 
of  literary  inspiration,  —  fulness  of  mind 
and  emptiness  of  pocket. 

I  am  often  struck,  especially  in  reading 
Montaigne,  with  the  obviousness  and  fa- 
miliarity of  a  great  writer's  thoughts,  and 
the  freshness  they  gain  because  said  by 
him.  The  truth  is,  we  mix  their  greatness 
with  all  they  say  and  give  it  our  best  at- 
tention. Johannes  Faber  sic  cogitavit, 
would  be  no  enticing  preface  to  a  book, 
but  an  accredited  name  gives  credit  like 
the  signature  of  a  note  of  hand.  It  is  the 
advantage  of  fame  that  it  is  always  priv- 
ileged to  take  the  world  by  the  button, 
and  a  thing  is  weightier  for  Shakespeare's 
uttering  it  by  the  whole  amount  of  his 
personality. 

It  is  singular  how  impatient  men  are 
with  overpraise  of  others,  how  patient 
with  overpraise  of  themselves  ;  and  yet  the 
one  does  them  no  injury,  while  the  other 
may  be  their  ruin. 

People  are  apt.  to  confound  mere  alert- 
ness of  mind  with  attention.  The  one  is 
but  the  flying  abroad  of  all  the  faculties 
to  the  open  doors  and  windows  at  every 
passing  rumor ;  the  other  is  the  concen- 
tration of  every  one  of  them  in  a  sin- 
gle focus,  as  in  the  alchemist  over  his 
alembic  at  the  moment  of  expected  pro- 
jection. Attention  is  the  stuff  that  mem- 
ory is  made  of,  and  memory  is  accumu- 
lated genius. 

Do  not  look  for  the  Millennium  as  im- 
minent. One  generation  is  apt  to  get  all 
the  wear  it  can  out  of  the  cast  clothes  of 
the  last,  and  is  always  sure  to  use  up  every 
paling  of  the  old  fence  that  will  hold  a  nail 
in  building  the  new. 


You  suspect  a  kind  of  vanity  in  my 
genealogical  enthusiasm.  Perhaps  you  are 
right ;  but  it  is  a  universal  foible.  Where  it 
does  not  show  itself  in  a  personal  and  pri- 
vate way,  it  becomes  public  and  gregarious. 
W e  flatter  ourselves  in  the  Pilgrim  Fathers, 
and  the  Virginian  offshoot  of  a  transported 
convict  swells  with  the  fancy  of  a  cavalier 
ancestry.  Pride  of  birth,  I  have  noticed, 
takes  two  forms.  One  complacently  traces 
himself  up  to  a  coronet ;  another,  defiantly, 
to  a  lapstone.  The  sentiment  is  precisely 
the  same  in  both  cases,  only  that  one  is 
the  positive  and  the  other  the  negative 
pole  of  it. 

Seeing  a  goat  the  other  day  kneeling  in 
order  to  graze  with  less  trouble,  it  seemed 
to  me  a  type  of  the  common  notion  of 
prayer.  Most  people  are  ready  enough  to 
go  down  on  their  knees  for  material  bless- 
ings, but  how  few  for  those  spiritual  gifts 
which  alone  are  an  answer  to  our  orisons, 
if  we  but  knew  it ! 

Some  people,  nowadays,  seem  to  have 
hit  upon  a  new  moralization  of  the  moth 
and  the  candle.  They  would  lock  up  the 
light  of  Truth,  lest  poor  Psyche  should 
put  it  out  in  her  effort  to  draw  nigh  to  it. 


No.  X. 

MR.  HOSEA  BIGLOW  TO  THE  EDITOR 
OP  THE  ATLANTIC  MONTHLY. 

Dear  Sir,  — Your  letter  come  to  han' 
Requestin'  me  to  please  be  funny ; 

But  I  ain't  made  upon  a  plan 

Thet  knows  wut 's  comin',  gall  or 
honey : 

Ther'  's  times  the  world  doos  look  so 
queer, 

Odd  fancies  come  afore  I  call  'em ; 
An'  then  agin,  for  half  a  year, 

No  preacher  'thout  a  call  's  more 
solemn. 

You  're  'n  want  o'  sunthin'  light  an'  cute, 
Rattlin'  an'  shrewd  an'  kin'  o'  jingle- 
ish, 

An'  wish,  pervidin'  it  'ould  suit, 
I 'd  take  an'  citify  my  English. 

I  ken  write  long-tailed,  ef  I  please,  — 
But  when  I 'm  jokin',  no,  I  thankee  ; 

Then,  'fore  I  know  it,  my  idees 
Run  helter-skelter  into  Yankee. 


28G 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


Sence  I  begun  to  scribble  rhyme, 

I  tell  ye  vvut,  I  hain't  ben  foolin'  ; 
The  parson's  books,  life,  death,  an'  time 
Hev  took   some   trouble  with  my 
schoolin'  ; 
Kor  th'  airth  don't  git  put  out  with  me, 
Thet  love  her  'z  though  she  wuz  a 
woman  ; 

Why,  th'  ain't  a  bird  upon  the  tree 
But  half  forgives  my  bein'  human. 

An'  yit  I  love  th'  unhighschooled  way 

01'  farmers  hed  when  I  wuz  younger  ; 
Their  talk  wuz  meatier,  an'  'ould  stay, 
While  book-froth  seems  to  whet  your 
hunger  ; 
For  puttin'  in  a  downright  lick 

'twixt  Humbug's   eyes,  ther'  's  few 
can  metch  it, 
An'  then  it  helves  my  thoughts  ez  slick 
Ez    st  ret- grained    hickory    doos  a 
hetchet. 

But  when  I  can't,  I  can't,  thet 's  all, 
For  Natur'  won't  put  up  with  gullin' ; 

Idees  you  hev  to  shove  an'  haul 

Like  a  druv  pig  ain't  wuth  a  mullein  : 

Live  thoughts  ain't  sent  for ;  thru  all 
rifts 

0'  sense  they  pour  an'  resh  ye  on- 
wards, 

Like  rivers  when  south-lyin'  drifts 
Feel  thet  th'  old  airth 's  a-wheelin' 
sunwards. 

Time  wuz,  the  rhymes  come  crowdin' 
thick 

Ez  office-seekers  arter  'lection, 
An'  into  ary  place  'ould  stick 

Without  no  bother  nor  objection  ; 
But  sence  the  war  my  thoughts  hang 
back 

Ez  though  I  wanted  to  enlist  'em, 
An'  subs'tutes,  — they  don't  never  lack, 
But  then  they  '11  slope  afore  you 've 
mist  'em. 

Nothin'  don't  seem  like  wut  it  wuz  ; 

I  can't  see  wut  there  is  to  hender, 
An'  yit  my  brains  jes'  go  buzz,  buzz, 

Like  bumblebees  agin  a  winder ; 
'fore  these  times  come,  in  all  airth 's 
row, 

Ther'  wuz  one  quiet  place,  my  head  in, 
Where  I  could  hide  an'  think.  —  but 
now 

It 's  all  one  teeter,  hopin',  dreadin'. 


Where 's  Peace  ?    I  start,  some  clear- 
blown  night, 
When  gaunt  stone  walls  grow  numb 
an'  number, 
An',  creakin'  'cross  the  snow-crus'  white, 
Walk  the  col'  starlight  into  summer  ; 
Up  grows  the  moon,  an'  swell  by  swell 
Thru  the  pale  pasturs  silvers  dimmer 
Than  the  last  smile  thet  strives  to  tell 
0'  love  gone  heavenward  in  its  shim- 
mer. 

I  hev  ben  gladder  o'  sech  things 

Than  cocks  o'  spring  or  bees  o'  clover, 
They  filled  my  heart  with  livin'  springs, 

But  now  they  seem  to  freeze  'em  over ; 
Sights  innercent  ez  babes  on  knee, 

Peaceful  ez  eyes  o'  pastur'd  cattle, 
Jes'  coz  they  be  so,  seem  to  me 

To  rile  me  more  with  thoughts  o' 
battle. 

In-doors  an'  out  by  spells  I  try; 

Ma'am  Natur'  keeps  her  spin-wheel 
goin', 

But  leaves  my  natur'  stiff  and  dry 
Ez  fiel's  o'  clover  arter  mo  win'  ; 

An'  her  jes'  keepin'  on  the  same, 
Calmer  'n  a  clock,  an'  never  carin', 

An'  find  in'  nary  thing  to  blame, 
Is  wus  than  ef  she  took  to  swearin'. 

Snow-flakes  come  whisperin'   on  the 
pane 

The  charm  makes   blazin'    logs  so 
pleasant, 

But  I  can't  hark  to  wut  they  're  sayV, 
With  Grant  or  Sherman  oilers  pres- 
ent ; 

The  chimbleys  shudder  in  the  gale, 
Thet  lulls,  then  suddin  takes  to  flap- 
pin' 

Like  a  shot  hawk,  but  all 's  ez  stale 
To  me  ez  so  much  sperit-rappin'. 

Under  the  yaller-pines  I  house, 

When  sunshine  makes  'em  all  sweet- 
scented, 

An'  hear  among  their  furry  boughs 
The   baskin'    west-wind   purr  con- 
tented, 

While  'way  o'erhead,  ez  sweet  an'  low 

Ez  distant  bells  thet  ring  for  meetin', 
The   wedged  wiT  geese   their  bugles 
blow, 

Further  an'  further  South  retreatin'. 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


287 


Or  up  the  slippery  knob  I  strain 
An'  see  a  hundred  hills  like  islan's 

Lift  their  blue  woods  in  broken  chain 
Out  o'  the  sea  o'  snowy  silence ; 

The   farm-smokes,    sweetes'  sight  on 
airth, 

Slow  thru  the  winter  air  a-shrinkin' 
Seem  kin'  o'  sad,  an'  roun'  the  hearth 
Of  empty  places  set  me  thinkin'. 

Beaver  roars  hoarse  with  meltin'  snows, 

An'  rattles  di'mon's  from  his  granite  ; 
Time  wuz,  he  snatched  away  my  prose, 

An'  into  psalms  or  satires  ran  it ; 
But  he,  nor  all  the  rest  thet  once 

Started  my  blood  to  country-dances, 
Can't  set  me  goin'  more  'n  a  dunce 

Thet  hain't  no  use  for  dreams  an' 
fancies. 

Rat-tat-tat- tattle  thru  the  street 
I  hear  the  drummers  makin'  riot, 

An'  1  set  thinkin'  o'  the  feet 

Thet  follered  once  an'  now  are  quiet, — 

White  feet  ez  snowdrops  innercent, 
Thet  never  knowed  the  paths  o'  Satan, 

Whose  comin'  step  ther'  's  ears  thet 
won't, 

No,  not  lifelong,  leave  off  awaitin'. 

Why,  hain't  T  held  'em  on  my  knee  ? 

Did  n't  I  love  to  see  'em  growing 
Three  likely  lads  ez  wal  could  be, 

Hahnsome   an'   brave  an'   not  tu 
knowin'  ? 
I  set  an'  look  into  the  blaze 

Whose  natur',  jes'  like  theirn,  keeps 
climbin', 
Ez  long  'z  it  lives,  in  shinin'  ways, 

An'  half  despise  myself  for  rhymin'. 

Wut's  words  to  them  whose  faith  an' 
truth 

On  War's  red  techstone  rang  true 
metal, 

Who  ventered  life  an'  love  an'  youth 
For  the  gret  prize  o'  death  in  battle  ? 

To  him  who,  deadly  hurt,  agen 

Flashed  on  afore  the  charge's  thunder, 

Tippin'  with  fire  the  bolt  of  men 
Thet  rived  the  Rebel  line  asunder  ? 

'T  ain't  right  to  hev  the  young  go  fust, 
All  throbbin'  full  o'  gifts  an'  graces, 

Leavin'  life's  paupers  dry  ez  dust 

To  try  an'  make  b'lieve  fill  their 
places : 


Nothin'  but  tells  us  wut  we  miss, 
Ther'  's  gaps  our  lives  can't  never  fay 
in, 

An'  thet  world  seems  so  fur  from  this 
Let '  for  us  loafers  to  grow  gray  in  ! 

My  eyes  cloud  up  for  rain  ;  my  mouth 
Will  take  to  twitchin'  roun'  the  cor- 
ners ; 

I  pity  mothers,  tu,  down  South, 

For  all  they  sot  among  the  scorners  : 

I 'd  sooner  take  my  chance  to  stan' 
At  Jedgment   where  your  meanest 
slave  is, 

Than  at  God's  bar  hoi'  up  a  han' 

Ez  drippin'  red  ez  yourn,  Jetf  Davis  ! 

Come,  Peace!  not  like  a  mourner  bowed 

For  honor  lost  an'  dear  ones  wasted, 
But  proud,  to  meet  a  people  proud, 

With  eyes  thet  tell  o'  triumph  tasted  ! 
Come,  with  han'  grippin'  on  the  hilt, 

An'  step  thet   proves  ye  Victory's 
daughter  ! 
Longin'  for  you,  our  sperits  wilt 

Like  shipwrecked  men's  on  raf 's  for 
water. 

Come,  while  our  country  feels  the  lift 

Of  a  gret  instinct  shoutin'  forwards, 
An'  knows  thet  freedom  ain't  a  gift 

Thet  tarries  long  in  ban's  o'  cowards ! 
Come,  sech  ez  mothers  prayed  for,  when 

They  kissed  their  cross  with  lips  thet 
quivered, 
An'  bring  fair  wages  for  brave  men, 

A  nation  saved,  a  race  delivered  ! 


No.  XI. 

MR.  HOSEA  BIGLOW'S  SPEECH  IN 
MARCH  MEETING. 

TO  THE  EDITOR   OF  THE  ATLANTIC 
MONTHLY. 

Jaalam,  April  5,  1S66. 

My  dear  Sir,  — 

(an'  noticin'  by  your  kiver  thet  you  're 
some  dearer  than  wut  you  wuz,  I  enclose 
the  detfrence)  I  dunno  ez  I  know  jest  how 
to  interdroce  this  las'  perduction  of  my 
mews,  ez  Parson  Willber  alius  called  'em, 
which  is  goin'  to  be  the  last  an'  stay  the 
last  onless  sunthin'  pertikler  sh'd  interfear 
which  I  don't  expec'  ner  I  wun't  yield  tu 


233 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


ef  it  wuz  ez  pressin'  ez  a  deppity  Sliiriff. 
Sence  Mr.  Wilbur's  disease  I  hev  n't  hed 
no  one  thet  could  dror  out  my  talons. 
He  ust  to  kind  o'  wine  me  up  an'  set  the 
penderlum  agoin'  an'  then  somehow  1 
seemed  to  go  on  tick  as  it  wear  tell  I  run 
down,  but  the  noo  minister  ain't  of  the 
same  brewin'  nor  I  can't  seem  to  git  ahold 
of  no  kine  of  naming  nater  in  him  but  sort 
of  slide  rite  off  as  you  du  on  the  eedge  of 
a  mow.  Minnysteeril  natur  is  wal  enough 
an'  a  site  better  'n  most  other  kines  I 
know  on,  but  the  other  sort  seen  as  Wel- 
bor  hed  wuz  of  the  Lord's  makin'  an'  nat- 
erally  more  wondertle  an'  sweet  tastin' 
leastways  to  me  so  fur  as  heerd  from.  He 
used  to  '  interdooce  'em  smooth  ez  ile 
athout  savin'  nothin'  in  pertickler  an'  I 
misdoubt  he  didn't  set  so  much  by  the 
sec'nd  Ceres  as  wut  he  done  by  the  Fust, 
fact,  he  let  on  onct  thet  his  mine  misgive 
him  of  a  sort  of  fallin'  off  in  spots.  He 
wuz  as  outspoken  as  a  norwester  he  wuz, 
but  I  tole  him  I  hoped  the  fall  wuz  from 
so  high  up  thet  a  feller  could  ketch  a  good 
many  times  fust  afore  comin'  bunt  onto 
the  ground  as  I  see  Jethro  C.  Swett  from 
the  meetin'  house  steeple  up  to  th'  old 
perrish,  an'  took  up  for  dead  but  he 's 
alive  now  an'  spry  as  wut  you  be.  Turn- 
in'  of  it  over  I  recclected  how  they  ust  to 
pal  wut  they  called  Argymunce  onto  the 
fronts  of  poymns,  like  poorches  afore 
h  onsen  whare  you  could  rest  ye  a  spell 
whilst  you  wuz  concludin'  whether  you 'd 
go  in  or  nut  espeshully  ware  tha  wuz  dar- 
ters, though  1  most  alius  found  it  the  best 
plen  to  go  in  fust  an'  think  afterwards  an' 
the  gals  likes  it  best  tu.  1  dno  as  speechis 
ever  hez  any  argimunts  to  sem,  I  never  see 
none  thet  hed  an'  I  guess  they  never  du 
but  tha  must  alius  be  a  B'ginnin*  to  every- 
thin'  athout  it  is  Eternity  so  I  '11  begin 
rite  away  an'  anybody  may  put  it  afore 
any  of  his  speeches  ef  it  soots  an'  welcome. 
I  don't  claim  no  paytent. 

THE  ARGYMUNT. 

Interducshin,  w'ich  may  be  skipt.  Be- 
gins by  talkin'  about  himself  :  thet 's  jest 
natur  an'  most  gin'ally  alius  pleasin',  1 
b'leeve  1  've  notist,  to  one  of  the  company, 
an'  thet  ?s  more  than  wut  you  can  say  of 
most  speshes  of  talkin'.  Nex'  comes  the 
gittin'  the  goodwill  of  the  orjunce  by  let- 
tin'  'em  gether  from  wut  you  kind  of  ex'- 
dentally  let  drop  thet  they  air  about  East, 
A  one,  an'  no  mistaik,  skare  'em  up  an' 
take  'em  as  they  rise.  Spring  interdooced 
with  a  fiew  approput  flours.  Speach 
finally  begins  witch  nobuddy  need  n't  feel 
obolygated  to  read  as  1  never  read  'em  an' 


never  shell  this  one  ag'in.  Subjick  staited ; 
expanded  ;  delayted  ;  extended.  Pump 
lively.  Subjick  staited  ag'in  so 's  to  a  vide 
all  mistaiks.  Ginnle  remarks ;  contin- 
ooed  ;  kerried  on  ;  pushed  furder  ;  kind  o' 
gin  out.  Subjick  re-staited;  dielooted ; 
stirred  up  permiscoous.  Pump  ag'in. 
Gits  back  to  where  he  sot  out.  Can't 
seem  to  stay  thair.  Ketches  into  Mr.  Sea- 
ward's  hair.  Breaks  loose  ag'in  an'  staits 
his  subjick  ;  stretches  it ;  turns  it ;  folds 
it ;  onfolds  it ;  folds  it  ag'in  so 's 't  no  one 
can't  find  it.  Argoos  with  an  imedginary 
bean  thet  ain't  aloud  to  say  nothin'  in  re- 
pleye.  Gives  him  a  real  good  dressin'  an' 
is  settyshde  he 's  rite.  Gits  into  Johnson's 
hair.  No  use  tryin'  to  git  into  his  head. 
Gives  it  up.  Hez  to  stait  his  subjick 
ag'in  ;  doos  it  back'ards,  sideways,  eend- 
ways,  criss-cross,  bevellin',  noways.  Gits 
finally  red  on  it.  Concloods.  Concloods 
more.  Reads  some  xtrax.  Sees  his  sub- 
jick a-nosin'  round  arter  him  ag'in.  Tries 
to  avide  it.     Wun't  du.     J/i'sstates  it. 

I  Can't  conjectur'  no  other  plawsable  way  of 
staytin'  on  it.  Tries  pump.  No  fx.  Fine- 
ly concloods  to  conclood,   Yeels  the  flore. 

You  kin  spall  an'  punctooate  thet  as 
you  please.  I  alius  do,  it  kind  of  puts  a 
noo  soot  of  close  onto  a  word,  thisere  fan- 
attick  spellin'  doos  an'  takes  'em  out  of 

I  the  prissen  dress  they  wair  in  the  Dixon - 

I  ary.  Ef  I  squeeze  the  cents  out  of  'em 
it  's  the  main  thing,  an'  wut  they  wuz 
made  for  ;  wut 's  left 's  jest  pummis. 

Mistur  Wilbur  sez  he  to  me  onct,  sez 
he,  "Hosee,"  sez  he,  "in  litterytoor  the 

,  only  good  thing  is  Natur.     It 's  amazin' 

t  hard  to  come  at,"  sez  he,  "  but  onct  git  it 
an'  you 've  gut  everythin'.     Wut 's  the 

j  sweetest  small  on  airth  ? "  sez  he  "  Noo- 
mone  hay,"  sez  I,  pooty  bresk,  for  he  wuz 
alius  hankerin'  round  in  hayin'  "  Naw- 
thin'  of  the  kine,"  sez  he  "My  leetle 
Huldy's  breath,"  sez  I  ag'in.  "You  're 
a  good  lad,"  sez  he,  his  eyes  sort  of  ripplin' 
like,  for  he  lost  a  babe  onct  nigh  about 
her  age,  —  "  you  're  a  good  lad  ;  but  't 
ain't  thet  nuther,"  sez  he.  "Ef  you  want 
to  know,"  sez  he,  "open  your  winder  of  a 
mornin'  et  ary  season,  and  you  '11  larn 
thet  the  best  of  perfooms  is  jest  fresh  air, 

fresh  air"  sez  he,  emphysizin',  "athout 
no  mixtur.  Thet 's  wut  /  call  natur  in 
writing  and  it  bathes  my  lungs  and  washes 
'em  sweet  whenever  I  git  a  whiff  on 't," 
sez  he.  I  often  think  o'  thet  when  I  set 
down  to  write,  but  the  winders  air  so  ept 
to  git  stuck,  an'  breakin'  a  pane  costs 
snnthin'. 

Yourn  for  the  last  time, 

Nut  to  be  continooed, 

Hosea  Biglow. 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


239 


I  don't  much  s'pose,  hows'ever  I  should 
plen  it, 

I  could  git  boosted  into  th'  House  or 
Sennit,  — 

Nut  while  the  twolegged  gab-machine 's 
so  plenty, 

'nablin'  one  man  to  du  the  talk  o' 
twenty ; 

I 'm  one  o'  them  thet  finds  it  ruther 
hard ! 

To  mannyfactur'  wisdom  by  the  yard, 
An'  maysure  off,  accordin'  to  demand, 
The  piece-goods  el'kence  that  1  keep  on 
hand, 

The  same  ole  pattern  runnin'  thru  an' 
thru, 

An'  nothin'  but  the  customer  thet 's 
'  new. 

I  sometimes  think,  the  furder  on  I  go, 
Thet  it  gits  harder  to  feel  sure  I  know, 
An'  when  1  've  settled  my  idees,  I  find 
't  warn't  1  sheered  most  in  makin'  up 

my  mind ; 
't  wuz  this  an'  thet  an'  t'  other  thing 

thet  done  it, 
Sunthin'  in  th'  air,  I  could  n'  seek  nor 

shun  it. 

Mos'  folks  go  off  so  quick  now  in  dis- 
cussion, 

All  th'  ole  flint  locks  seems  altered  to 

percussion, 
Whilst  I  in  agin'  sometimes  git  a  hint, 
Thet  I 'm  percussion  changin'  back  to 

flint  ; 

Wal,  ef  it 's  so,  I  ain't  agoin'  to  werrit, 
For  th'  ole  Queen's-arm  hez  this  pertickler 
merit,  — 

It  gives  the  mind  a  hahnsome  wedth  o' 
margin 

To  kin'  o'  make  its  will  afore  dischargin' : 
1  can't  make  out  but  jest  one  ginnle 
rule,  — 

No  man  need  go  an'  make  himself  a  fool, 
Nor  jedgment  ain't  like  mutton,  thet 
can't  bear 

Cookin'  tu  long,  nor  be  took  up  tu  rare. 
Ez  I  wuz  say'n',  I  hain't  no  chance  to 


So 's 't  all  the  country  dreads  me  onct  a 
week, 

But  I 've  consid'ble  o'  thet  sort.o'  head 
Thet  sets  to  home  an'  thinks  wut  might 
be  said, 

The  sense  thet  grows  an'  werrits  under- 
neath, 

Comin'  belated  like  your  wisdom-teeth, 
19 


An'  git  so  el'kent,  sometimes,  to  my 
gardin 

Thet  I  don'  vally  public  life  a  fardin'. 
Our  Parson  Wilbur  (blessin's  on  his 
head  !) 

'mongst  other  stories  of  ole  times  he  hed, 
Talked  of  a  feller  thet  rehearsed  his 
spreads 

Beforehan'  to  his  rows  o'  kebbige-heads, 
(Ef 't  war  n't  Demossenes,  1  guess 't  wuz 
Sisro, ) 

Appealin'  fust  to  thet  an'  then  to  this 
row, 

Accordin'  ez  he  thought  thet  his  idees 
Their  diff runt  ev'riges  o'  brains  'ould 
please  ; 

"An',"sez  the  Parson,  "to  hit  right, 
you  must 

Git  used  to  maysurin'  your  hearers  fust; 
For,  take  my  word  for 't,  when  all 's 

come  an'  past, 
The  kebbige-heads  '11  cair  the  day  et 

last ; 

Th'  ain't  ben  a  meetin'  sence  the  worF 
begun 

But  they  made  (raw  or  biled  ones)  ten 
to  one." 

I  Ve  alius  foun'  'em,  I  allow,  sence  then 
About  ez  good  for  talkin'  to  ez  men  ; 
They  '11  take  edvice,  like  other  folks,  to 
keep, 

(To  use  it  'ould  be  holdin'  on  't  tu 
cheap,) 

They  listen  wal,  don'  kick  up  when  you 
scold  'em, 

An'  ef  they 've  tongues,  hev  sense  enough 

to  hold  'em ; 
Though  th'  ain't  no  denger  we  shall  lose 

the  breed, 
I  gin'lly  keep  a  score  or  so  for  seed, 
An'  when  my  sappiness  gits  spry  in 

spring, 

So 's 't  my  tongue  itches  to  run  on  full 
swing, 

I  fin'  'em  ready-planted  in  March- 
meetin', 

Warm  ez  a  lyceum-audience  in  their 
greetin', 

An'  pleased  to  hear  my  spoutin'  frum 
the  fence,  — 

Comin',  ez  't  doos,  entirely  free  'f  ex- 
pense. 

This  year  I  made  the  follerin'  observa- 
tions 

Extrump'ry,  like  most  other  tri'ls  o' 
patience, 


290 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


An',  no  reporters  bein'  sent  express 
To  work  their  abstrac's  up  into  a  mess 
Ez  like  th'  oridg'nal  ez  a  woodcut  pictur' 
Thet  chokes  the  lite  out  like  a  boy-con- 
strictor, 

I  've  writ  'em  out,  an'  so  avide  all 
jeal'sies 

'twixt  nonsense  o'  my  own  an'  some 
one's  else's. 

(N.  B.  Reporters  gin'lly  git  a  hint 
To  make  dull  orjunces  seem  live  in 
print, 

An',  ez  I  hev  t'  report  myself,  I  vum, 
I  '11  put  th'  applauses  where  they 'd 
ought  to  come  !) 

My  feller  kebbige-heads,  who  look 
so  green, 

I  vow  to  gracious  thet  ef  I  could  dreen 
The  world  of  all  its  hearers  but  jest  you, 
't  would  leave  'bout  all  tha'  is  wuth 
talkin'  to, 

An' you,  my  ven'able  ol'  Men's,  thet  show 
Upon  your  crowns  a  sprinklin  o'  March 
snow, 

Ez  ef  mild  Time  had  christened  every 
sense 

For  wisdom's  church  o'  second  innocence, 
Nut  Age's  winter,  no,  no  sech  a  thing, 
But  jest  a  kin'   o'   slippin'-back  o' 

spring,  —  [Sev'ril  noses  blowed.J 

We 've  gathered  here,  ez  ushle,  to  decide 
"Which  is  the  Lord's  an'  which  is  Satan's 

side, 

Coz  all  the  good  or  evil  thet  can  heppen 
Is  'long  o'  which  on  'em  you  choose  for 
Cappen.  [Cries  o'  "Thet 's  so !  "J 

Aprul 's  come  back  ;  the  swellin'  buds  of 
oak 

Dim  the  fur  hillsides  with  a  purplish 
smoke ; 

The  brooks  are  loose  an',  singing  to  be 
seen, 

(Like  gals,)  make  all  the  hollers  soft  an' 
green  ; 

The  birds  are  here,  for  all  the  season 's 
late  ; 

They  take  the  sun's  height  an'  don' 

never  wait  ; 
Soon  'z  he  officially  declares  it 's  spring 
Their  light  hearts  lift  'em  on  a  north- 

'ard  wing, 

An'  th'  ain't  an  acre,  fur  ez  you  can  hear, 
Can't  by  the  music  tell  the  time  o'  year; 
But  thet  white  dove  Caiiiny  scared  away, 


Five  year  ago,  jes'  sech  an  Aprul  day  ; 
Peace,  that  we  hoped  'ould  come  an' 

build  last  year 
An'   coo  by  every  housedoor,  is  n't 

here,  — 

No,  nor  wun't  never  be,  for  all  our  jaw, 
Till  we  're  ez  brave  in  pol'tics  ez  in  war ! 
0  Lord,  ef  folks  wuz  made  so 's 't  they 
could  see 

The  begnet-pint  there  is  to  an  idee  ! 

[Sensation.] 

Ten  times  the  danger  in  'em  th'  is  in 
steel ; 

They  run  your  soul  thru  an'  you  never 
feel, 

But  crawl  about  an'  seem  to  think 

you  're  livin', 
Poor  shells  o'  men,  nut  wuth  the  Lord's 

forgivin', 

Till  you  come  bunt  ag'in  a  real  live  feet, 
An'  go  to  pieces  when  you 'd  ough'  to 
ect  ! 

Thet  kin'  o'  begnet 's  wut  we  're  crossin' 
now, 

An'  no  man,  fit  to  nevvigate  a  scow, 
'ould  stan'  expectin'  help  from  Kingdom 
Come, 

While  t'  other  side  druv  their  cold  iron 
home. 

My  Men's,  you  never  gethered  from  my 
mouth, 

No,  nut  one  word  ag'in  the  South  ez 
South, 

Nor  th'  ain't  a  livin'  man,  white,  brown, 
nor  black, 

Gladder  'n  wut  I  should  be  to  take  'em 
back  ; 

But  all  I  ask  of  Uncle  Sam  is  fust 
To  write  up  on  his  door,  4 '  No  goods  on 
trust "  ; 

[Cries  of  "  Thet 's  the  ticket !  "] 
Give  us  cash  down  in  ekle  laws  for  all, 
An'  they  '11  be  snug  inside  afore  nex'  fall. 
Give  wut  they  ask,  an'  we  shell  hev 
Jamaker, 

Wuth  minus  some  consid'able  an  acre  ; 
Give  wut  they  need,  an'  we  shell  git 
'fore  long 

A  nation  all  one  piece,  rich,  peacefle, 
strong ; 

Make  'em  Amerikin,  an'  they  '11  begin 
To  love  their  country  ez  they  loved  their 
sin  ; 

Let  'em  stay  Southun,  an'  you 've  kep' 

a  sore 

Ready  to  fester  ez  it  done  afore. 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


291 


No  mortle  man  can  boast  of  perfic'  vision, 
But  the  one  moleblin'  thing  is  Inde- 
cision, 

An'  th'  ain't  no  futur'  for  the  man  nor 

state 

Thet  out  of  j-u-s-t  can't  spell  great. 
Some  folks  'ould  call  thet  reddikle  ;  do 
you  ? 

'T  was  commonsense  afore  the  war  wuz 
thru ; 

Thet  loaded  all  our  guns  an'  made  'em 
speak 

So 's 't  Europe  heared  'em  clearn  acrost 

the  creek  ; 
' '  They  're  drivin'  o'  their  spiles  down 

now,"  sez  she, 
"  To  the  hard  grennit  o'  God's  fust 

idee ; 

Ef  they  reach  thet,  Democ'cy  need  n't 
fear 

The  tallest  airthquakes  we  can  git  up 
here." 

Some  call 't  insultin'  to  ask  ary  pledge, 
An'  say 't  will  only  set  their  teeth  on 
edge, 

But  folks  you 've  jest  licked,  fur  'z  I 
ever  see, 

Are  'bout  ez  mad  'z  they  wal  know  how 
to  be ; 

It 's  better  than  the  Rebs  themselves 
expected 

'fore  they  see  Uncle  Sam  wilt  down 

henpected  ; 
Be  kind  'z  you  please,  but  fustly  make 

things  fast, 
For  plain  Truth 's  all  the  kindness  thet 

"41  last ; 

Ef  treason  is  a  crime,  ez  some  folks  say, 
How  could  we  punish  it  a  milder  way 
Than  sayin'  to  'em,  "  Brethren,  lookee 
here, 

We  '11  jes'  divide  things  with  ye,  sheer 
an'  sheer, 

An  sence  both  come  o'  pooty  strong- 
backed  daddies, 

You  take  the  Darkies,  ez  we 've  took 
the  Paddies  ; 

Ign'ant  an'  poor  we  took  'em  by  the 
hand, 

An'  they  're  the  bones  an'  sinners  o'  the 
land." 

I  ain't  o'  them  thet  fancy  there 's  a  loss 
on 

Every  inves'ment  thet  don't  start  from 
Bos 'on ; 

But  I  know  this  :  our  money  \s  safest 
trusted 


In  sunthin',  come  wut  will,  thet  can't 

be  busted, 
An'  thet 's  the  old  Amerikin  idee, 
To  make  a  man  a  Man  an'  let  him  be. 

[Gret  applause.] 
Ez  for  their  l'yalty,  don't  take  a  goad 

to 't, 

But  I  do'  want  to  block  their  only  road 
to 't 

By  lettin'  'em  believe  thet  they  can  git 
Mor  'n  wut  they  lost,  out  of  our  little 
wit : 

I  tell  ye  wut,  I 'm  'fraid  we  '11  drif  to 
leeward 

'thout  we  can  put  more  stiffenin'  into 
Seward ; 

He  seems  to  think  Columby  'd  better  ect 
Like  a  scared  widder  with  a  boy  stiff- 
necked 

Thet  stomps  an'  swears  he  wun't  come 

in  to  supper  ; 
She  mus'  set  up  for  him,  ez  weak  ez 

Tupper, 

Keepin'  the  Constitootion  on  to  warm, 
Tell  he  '11  eccept  her  'pologies  in  form  : 
The  neighbors  tell  her  he 's  a  cross- 
grained  cuss 
Thet  needs  a  hidin'  'fore  he  comes  to 
wus  ; 

"No,"  sez  Ma  Seward,  "he's  ez  good 

'z  the  best, 
All  he  wants  now  is  sugar-plums  an' 

rest "  ; 

"He  sarsed  my  Pa,"  sez  one;  "He 

stoned  my  son," 
Another  edds.    "  0,  wal,  't  wuz  jest  his 

fun." 

"  He  tried  to  shoot  our  Uncle  Samwell 

dead." 

"  'T  wuz  only  tryin'  a  noo  gun  he  hed." 
"  Wal,  all  we  ask 's  to  hev  it  understood 
You  '11  take  his  gun  away  from  him  for 
good; 

We  don't,  wal,  nut  exac'ly,  like  his 
.  P^y, 

Seein'  he  alius  kin'  o'  shoots  our  way. 
You  kill  your  fatted  calves  to  no  good 
eend, 

'thout  his  fust  sayin',  'Mother,  I  hev 
sinned  ! '  " 

[£<  Amen !  "  frum  Deac'n  Greenleaf] 

The  Pres'dunt  he  thinks  thet  the  slick- 
est plan 

'ould  be  t'  allow  thet  he 's  our  on'y 
man, 

An'  thet  we  fit  thru  all  thet  dreffle  war 


292 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


Jes'  for  his  private  glory  an'  eclor  ; 
"  Nobody  ain't  a  Union  man,"  sez  he, 
"'thout  he  agrees,  thru  thick  an'  thin, 
with  me  ; 

"War  n't  Andrew  Jackson's  'nitials  jes' 

like  mine  ? 
An'  ain't  thet  sunthin   like  a  right 

divine 

To  cut  up  ez  kentenkerous  ez  I  please, 
An'  treat  your  Congress  like  a  nest  o' 
fleas?'" 

Wal,  I  expec'  the  People  would  n' 
care,  if 

The  question  now  wuz  techin'  bank  or 
tariff, 

But  I  conclude  they  've  'bout  made  up 

their  mind 
This  ain't  the  fittest  time  to  go  it  blind, 
Nor  these  ain't  metters  thet  with  pol- 

'tics  swings, 
But  goes  'way  down  amongst  the  roots 

o'  things  ; 

Coz  Sumner  talked  o'  whitewashin'  one 
day 

They  wun't  let  four  years'  war  be  thro  wed 
away. 

"  Let  the  South  hev  her  rights  ? "  They 

say,  "  Thet 's  you  ! 
But  nut  greb  hold  of  other  folks's  tu." 
Who  owns  this  country,  is  it  they  or 

Andy  ? 

Leastways  it  ough*  to  be  the  People  and 
he  ; 

Let  him  be  senior  pardner,  ef  he 's  so, 
But  let  them  kin'  o'  smuggle  in  ez  Co  ; 

[Laughter.] 

Did  he  diskiver  it  ?   Consid'ble  numbers 
Think  thet  the  job  wuz  taken  by  Co- 
lumbus. 

Did  he  set  tu  an'  make  it  wut  it  is  ? 
Ef  so,  I  guess  the  One-Man-power  hez 
riz. 

Did  he  put  thru  the  rebbles,  clear  the 
docket, 

An'  pay  th'  expenses  out  of  his  own 
pocket  ? 

Ef  thet 's  the  case,  then  everythin'  I 
exes 

Is  t'  hev  him  come  an'  pay  my  ennooal 
texes.  [Profound  sensation.] 

"Was 't  he  thet  shou'dered  all  them  mil- 
lion guns  ? 

Did  he  lose  all  the  fathers,  brothers, 
sons  ? 

Is  this  ere  pop'lar  gov'ment  thet  we 
run 

A  kin'  o'  sulky,  made  to  kerry  one  ? 


An'  is  the  country  goin'  to  knuckle 
down 

To  hev  Smith  sort  their  letters  'stid  o' 
Brown  ? 

Who  wuz  the  'Nited  States  'fore  Rich- 
mon'  fell  ? 

Wuz  the  South  needfle  their  full  name 
to  spell  ? 

An'  can't  we  spell  it  in  thet  short-han' 

way 

Till  th'  underpinnin'  's  settled  so 's  to 
stay? 

Who  cares  for  the  Resolves  of  '61, 
Thet  tried  to  coax  an  airthquake  with  a 
bun  ? 

Hez  act'ly  nothin'  taken  place  sence 
then 

To  larn  folks  they  must  hendle  fects 

like  men  ? 
Ain't  this  the  true  p'int  ?   Did  the  Rebs 

accep'  'em  ? 
Ef  nut,  whose  fault  is  't  thet  we  hev  n't 

kep  'em? 

War  n't  there  two  sides  ?  an'  don't  it 
stend  to  reason 

Thet  this  week's  'Nited  States  ain't  las' 
week's  treason  ? 

When  all  these  sums  is  done,  with 
nothin'  missed, 

An'  nut  afore,  this  school  '11  be  dis- 
missed. 

I  knowed  ez  wal  ez  though  I 'd  seen 't 
with  eyes 

Thet  when  the  war  wuz  over  copper 'd 
rise, 

An'  thet  we 'd  hev  a  rile-up  in  our 

kettle 

't  would  need  Leviathan's  whole  skin 
to  settle  : 

I  thought 't  would  take  about  a  genera- 
tion 

'fore  we  could  wal  begin  to  be  a  nation, 

But  I  allow  I  never  did  imegine 

't  would  be  our  Pres'dunt  thet  'ould 

drive  a  wedge  in 
To  keep  the  split  from  closin'  ef  it  could, 
An'  healin'  over  with  new  wholesome- 
wood  ; 

For  th'  ain't  no  chance  o'  healin'  while 

they  think 
Thet  law  an'  gov'ment 's  only  printer's 

ink  ; 

I  mus'  confess  I  thank  him  for  dis- 
coverin' 

The  curus  way  in  which  the  States  are 
sovereign  ; 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


293 


They  ain't  nut  quite  enough  so  to  rebel, 
But,  when  they  fin'  it 's  costly  to  raise 

h — ,  [A  groan  from  Deac'n  G.] 

Why,  then,  for  jes'  the  same  supeii'tive 

reason, 

They  're  'most  too  much  so  to  be  tetched 

for  treason  ; 
They  can't  go  out,  but  ef  they  somehow 

du, 

Their  sovereignty  don't  noways  go  out 
tu  ; 

The  State  goes  out,  the  sovereignty  don't 
stir, 

But  stays  to  keep  the  door  ajar  for  her. 
He  thinks  secession  never  took  'em  out, 
An'  mebby  he 's  correc',  but  1  misdoubt ; 
Ef  they  war  n't  out,  then  why,  'n  the 
»  y     name  o'  sin, 

Make  all  this  row  'bout  lettm'  of  'em 
in  ? 

In  law,  p'r'aps  nut ;  but  there 's  a  dif- 

furence,  ruther, 
Betwixt  your  mother-'n-law  an'  real 

mother,  [Derisive  cheers.] 

An'  I,  for  one,  shall  wish  they  'd  all 

been  soirieres, 
Long  'z  U.  S.  Texes  are  sech  reg'lar 

comers. 

But,  0  my  patience  !  must  we  wriggle 
back 

Into  th'  ole  crooked,  pettyfoggin'  track, 
When  our  artil'ry-wheels  a  road  hev  cut 
Stret  to  our  purpose  ef  we  keep  the  rut  ? 
War 's  jes'  dead  waste  excep'  to  wipe  the 
slate 

Clean  for  the  cyph'rin'  of  some  nobler 
fate.  [Applause.] 

Ez  for  dependin'  on  their  oaths  an'  thet, 
't  wun't  bind  'em  mor  'n  the  ribbin 

roun'  my  het ; 
I  heared  a  fable  once  from  Othniel 

Starns, 

That  pints  it  slick  ez  weathercocks  do 
barns : 

Onct  on  a  time  the  wolves  hed  certing 
rights 

Inside  the  fold  ;  they  used  to  sleep  there 
nights. 

An',  bein'  cousins  o'  the  dogs,  they  took 
Their  turns  et  watchin',  reg'lar  ez  a 
book  ; 

But  somehow,  when  the  dogs  hed  gut 
asleep, 

Their  love  o'  mutton  beat  their  love  o' 
sheep, 

Till  gradilly  the  shepherds  come  to  see 


Things  war  n't  agoiii'  ez  they 'd  ough' 
to  be  ; 

So  they  sent  off*  a  deacon  to  remonstrate 
Along  'th  the  wolves  an'  urge  'em  to  go 

on  straight  ; 
They  did  n'  seem  to  set  much  by  the 

deacon, 

Nor  preachin'  didn'  cow  'em,  nut  to 

speak  on  ; 
Fin'ly  they  swore  thet  they 'd  go  out  an' 
?  stay, 

An'  hev  their  fill  o'  mutton  every  day  ; 
Then  dogs  an'  shepherds,  after  much 
hard  dammin', 

[Groan  from  Deac'n  G.] 
Turned  tu  an'  give  'em  a  tormented 
lammin', 

An'  sez,  "Ye  sha'  n't  go  out,  the  mur- 
rain rot  ye, 

To  keep  us  wastin'  half  our  time  to  watch 
ye!" 

But  then  the  question  come,  How  live 
together 

'thout  losin'  sleep,  nor  nary  yew  nor 
wether  ? 

Now  there  wuz  some  dogs  (noways  wuth 

their  keep) 
That  sheered  their  cousins'  tastes  an' 

sheered  the  sheep  ; 
They  sez,  "Be  gin'rous,  let  'em  swear 

right  in, 

An',  ef  they  backslide,  let  'em  swear 
t  ag'in  ; 

Jes'  let  'em  put  on  sheep-skins  whilst 

they  're  swearin'  ; 
To  ask  for  more  'ould  be  beyond  all 

bearin'." 

"Be  gin'rous  for  yourselves,  where  you 
're  to  pay, 

Thet 's  the  best  prectice,"  sez  a  shep- 
herd gray  ; 

"  Ez  for  their  oaths  they  wun't  be  wuth 
a  button, 

Long  'z  you  don't  cure  'em  o'  their  taste 

for  mutton  ; 
Th'  ain't  but  one  solid  way,  howe'er  you 

puzzle  : 

Tell  they  're  convarted,  let  'em  wear  a 
muzzle. "      [Cries  of  "  Bully  for  you  !  "J 

I 've    noticed    thet    each  half-baked 

scheme's  abetters 
Are  in  the  hebbit  o'  producin'  letters 
Writ  by  all  sorts  o'  never-heared-on 

fellers, 

'bout  ez  oridge'nal  ez  the  wind  in  hel- 
lers ; 


294 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPEKS. 


I  've  noticed,  tu,  it 's  the  quack  med'- 
cine  gits 

(An'  needs)  the  grettest  heaps  o'  stiffy- 
kits  ;  [Two  apothekeries  goes  out.] 

Now,  sence  I  lef  off  creepin'  on  all  fours, 

I  hain't  ast  no  man  to  endorse  my  course ; 

It 's  full  ez  cheap  to  be  your  own  endor- 
ser, 

An'  ef  I  Ve  made  a  cup,  I  '11  fin'  the 

saucer ; 

But  I 've  some  letters  here  from  t'  other 
side, 

An'  them  's  the  sort  thet  helps  me  to 
decide  ; 

Tell  me  for  wut  the  copper-comp'nies 
hanker, 

An'  I  '11  tell  you  jest  where  it 's  safe  to 
anchor.  [Faint  hiss.] 

Fus'ly  the  Hon'ble  B.  O.  Sawin  writes 
Thet  for  a  spell  he  could  n'  sleep  o' 
nights, 

Puzzlin'  which  side  wus  preudentest  to 
pin  to, 

Which  wuz  th'  ole  homestead,  which  the 

temp'ry  leanto ; 
Et  fust  he  j edged 't  would  right-side-up 

his  pan 

To  come  out  ez  a  'ridge'nal  Union  man, 
"But  now,"  he  sez,  "  I  ain't  nut  quite 
so  fresh  ; 

The  winnin'  horse  is  goin'  to  be  Secesh  ; 
You  might,  las'  spring,  hev  eas'ly  walked 

the  course, 
'fore  we  contrived  to  doctor  th'  Union 

horse  ; 

Now  we  're  the  ones  to  walk  aroun'  the 

nex'  track  : 
Jest  you  take  hold  an'  read  the  follerin' 

extrac', 

Out  of  a  letter  I  received  last  week 
From  an  ole  frien'  thet  never  sprung  a 
leak, 

A  Nothun  Dem'crat  o'  th'  ole  Jarsey 
blue, 

Born  copper-sheathed  an'  copper-fastened 
tu." 

* ■  These  four  years  past  it  hez  been  tough 
To  say  which  side  a  feller  went  for  ; 
Guideposts  all  gone,  roads  muddy  'n' 
rough, 

An'  nothin'  duin'  wut  't  wuz  meant  for ; 
Pickets  a-firin'  left  an'  right, 
Both  sides  a  lettin'  rip  et  sight,  — 
Life  war  n't  wuth  hardly  payin'  rent  for. 

"  Columby  gut  her  back  up  so, 

It  war  n't  no  use  a-tryin'  to  stop  her,  — 


'War's  emptin's  riled  her  very  dough 
An'  made  it  rise  an'  act  improper ; 
't  wuz  full  ez  much  ez  I  could  du 
To  jes'  lay  low  an'  worry  thru, 
'thout  hevin'  to  sell  out  my  copper. 

"  Afore  the  war  your  mod'rit  men 
Could  set  an'  sun  'em  on  the  fences, 
Cyph'rin'  the  chances  up,  an'  then 
Jump  off  which  way  bes'  paid  expenses  ; 
Sence,  't  wus  so  resky  ary  way, 
I  did  n't  hardly  darst  to  say 
I  'greed  with  Paley's  Evidences. 

[Groan  from  Deac'n  G.] 

"Ask  Mac  ef  tryin'  to  set  the  fence 
War  n't  like  bein'  rid  upon  a  rail  on 't, 
Headin'  your  party  with  a  sense 
0'  bein'  tipjint  in  the  tail  on't, 
And  tryin'  to  think  thet,  on  the  whole, 
You  kin'  o'  quasi  own  your  soul 
"When  Belmont 's  gut  a  bill  o'  sale  on't  ? 
[Three  cheers  for  Grant  and  Sherman.] 

"Come  peace,  I  sposed  thet  folks  'ould 
like 

Their  pel' tics  done  ag'in  by  proxy 
Give  their  noo  loves  the  bag  an'  strike 
A  fresh  trade  with  their  reg'lar  doxy ; 
But  the  drag 's  broke,  now  slavery 's 
gone, 

An'  there 's  gret  resk  they  '11  blunder  on, 
Ef  they  ain't  stopped,  to  real  Democ'cy. 

"We 've  gut  an  awful  row  to  hoe 
In  this  'ere  job  o'  reconstructin' ; 
Folks  dunno  skurce  which  way  to  go, 
"Where  th'  ain't  some  boghole  to  be 

ducked  in  ; 
But  one  thing 's  clear ;  there  is  a  crack, 
Ef  we  pry  hard,  'twixt  white  an'  black, 
Where  the  old  makebate  can  be  tucked 

in. 

"No  white  man  sets  in  airth's  broad 

aisle 

Thet  I  ain't  willin' t'  own  ez  brother, 
An'  ef  he 's  heppened  to  strike  ile, 
I  dunno,  fin'ly,  but  I 'd  ruther ; 
An'  Paddies,  long  'z  they  vote  all  right, 
Though  they  ain't  jest  a  nat'ral  white, 
I  hold  one  on  'em  good  'z  another. 

[Applause.] 

"Wut  is  there  lef  I 'd  like  to  know, 
Ef 't  ain't  the  difference  o'  color, 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


295 


To  keep  up  self-respec'  an'  show 
The  human  natur'  of  a  fullah  ? 
Wut  good  in  bein'  white,  onless 
It 's  fixed  by  law,  nut  lef  to  guess, 
That  we  are  smarter  an'  they  duller  ? 

"  Ef  we  're  to  hev  our  ekle  rights, 
't  wun't  du  to  'low  no  competition ; 
Th'  ole  debt  doo  us  for  bein'  whites 
Ain't  safe  onless  we  stop  th'  emission 
O'  these  noo  notes,  whose  specie  base 
Is  human  natur',  'thout  no  trace 
0'  shape,  nor  color,  nor  condition. 

[Continood  applause.] 

"So  fur  I 'd  writ  an'  could  n'  jedge 
Aboard  wut  boat  1  'd  best  take  pessige, 
My  brains  all  mincemeat,  'thout  no 
edge 

Upon  'em  more  than  tu  a  sessige, 
But  now  it  seems  ez  though  I  see 
Sun  thin'  resemblin'  an  idee, 
Sence  Johnson's  speech  an'  veto  mes- 
sage. 

"I  like  the  speech  best,  I  confess, 
The  logic,  preudence,  an'  good  taste 
on 't, 

An'  it 's  so  mad,  I  ruther  guess 
There 's  some  dependence  to  be  placed 
on't;  [Laughter.] 
It 's  narrer,  but  'twixt  you  an'  me, 
Out  o'  the  allies  o'  J.  D. 
A  temp'ry  party  can  be  based  on  't. 

"  Jes'  to  hold  on  till  Johnson 's  thru 
An'  dug  his  Presidential  grave  is, 
An'  then  ! — who  knows  but  we  could 
slew 

The  country  roun'  to  put  in  ? 

Wun't  some  folks  rare  up  when  we  pull 
Out  o'  their  eyes  our  Union  wool 
An'  larn  'em  wut  a  p'lit'cle  shave  is ! 

"  0,  did  it  seem  'z  ef  Providunce 
Could  ever  send  a  second  Tyler  ? 
To  see  the  South  all  back  to  once, 


Eeapin'  the  spiles  o'  the  Freesiler, 
Is  cute  ez  though  an  ingineer 
Should  claim  th'  old  iron  for  his  sheer 
Coz 't  was  himself  that  bust  the  biler ! " 

[Gret  laughter.] 

Thet  tells  the  story!    Thet's  wut  we 
shall  git 

By  tryin'  squirtguns  on  the  burnin'  Pit ; 
For  the  day  never  comes  when  it  '11  du 
To  kick  off  Dooty  like  a  worn-out  shoe. 
I  seem  to  hear  a  whisperin'  in  the  air, 
A  sighin'  like,  of  unconsoled  despair, 
Thet   comes  from  nowhere  an'  from 

everywhere, 
An'  seems  to  say,  "Why  died  we  ?  war 

n't  it,  then, 
To  settle,  once  for  all,  thet  men  wuz 

men  ? 

0,  airth's  sweet  cup  snetched  from  us 

barely  tasted, 
The  grave's  real  chill  is  feelin'  life  wuz 

wasted ! 

0,  you  we  lef,  long-lingerin'  et  the 
door, 

Lovin'  you  best,  coz  we  loved  Her  the 
more, 

Thet  Death,  not  we,  had  conquered,  we 

should  feel 
Ef  she  upon  our  memory  turned  her 

heel, 

An'  unregretful  throwed  us  all  away 
To  flaunt  it  in  a  Blind  Man's  Holiday  !" 

My  frien's,  I 've  talked  nigh  on  to  long 
enough. 

I  hain't  no  call  to  bore  ye  coz  ye  're 
tough ; 

My  lungs  are  sound,  an'  our  own  v'ice 
delights 

Our  ears,  but  even  kebbige-heads  hez 
rights. 

It's  the  las'  time  thet  I  shell  e'er  ad- 
dress ye, 

But  you  '11  soon  fin'  some  new  torment- 
or :  bless  ye  ! 
[Tumult'ous  applause  and  cries  of  "  Go  on ! " 
"Don't  stop !"] 


GLOSSARY. 


A. 

Act'lly,  actually. 
Air,  are. 
Airth,  earth. 
Airy,  area. 
Aree,  area. 
Alter,  after. 
Ax,  ask. 

B. 

Beller,  bellow. 
Bellowses,  lungs. 
Ben,  beert. 
Bile,  fcoiZ. 

Bimeby,  by  and  by. 
Blurt  out,  to  speak  bluntly. 
Bust,  burst. 

Buster,  a  roistering  blade;  used  also  as  a  gen- 
eral superlative. 

C. 

Caird,  carried. 

Cairn,  carrying. 

Caleb,  a  turncoat. 

Cal'late,  calculate. 

Cass,  a  person  with  tv)0  lives. 

Close,  clotlies. 

Cockerel,  a  young  cock. 

Cocktail,  a  kind  of  drink;  also,  an  ornament 
pecidiar  to  soldiers. 

Conventiou,  a  place  where  people  are  imposed 
on ;  a  juggler's  show. 

Coons,  a  cant  term  for  a  now  defunct  party ;  de- 
rived, perhaps,  from  the  fact  of  their  being 
commonly  up  a  tree. 

Cornwallis,  a  sort  of  muster  in  masquerade ;  sup- 
posed to  have  had  its  origin  soon  after  the 
Revolution,  and  to  commemorate  the  surren- 
der of  Lord  Cornwallis.  It  took  the  place  of 
the  old  Guy  Fawkes  procession. 

Crooked  stick,  a  perverse,  froward  person. 

Cunnle,  a  colonel. 

Cus,  a  curse  ;  also,  a  pitiful  fellow. 


D. 

Darsn't,  used  indiscriminately,  either  in  singu- 
lar or  plural  number,  for  dare  not,  dares  not, 
and  dared  not. 

Deacon  off,  to  give  the  cue  to  ;  derived  from  a 
custom,  once  universal,  but  now  extinct,  in 
our  New  England  Congregational  churches. 
An  important  part  of  the  office  of  deacon  was 


to  read  aloud  the  hymns  given  out  by  the 

minister,  one  line  at  a  time,  the  congregation 

singing  each  line  as  soon  as  read. 
Demmercrat,  leadin',  one  hi  favor  of  extending 

slavery;  a  free-trade  lecturer  maintained  in 

the  custom-house. 
Desput,  desperate. 
Doos,  does. 

Doughface,  a  contented  lick-spittle;  a  common 

variety  of  Northern  politician. 
Dror,  draw. 
Du,  do. 

Dunno,  dno,  do  not  or  does  not  know. 
Dut,  dirt. 

E. 

Eend,  end. 
Ef,  if. 

Emptins,  yeast. 
Env'y,  envoy. 

Everlasting,  an  intensive,  without  reference  to 

duration. 
Ev'y,  every. 
Ez,  as. 

F. 

Fence,  on  the  ;  said  of  one  who  halts  between 

two  opinions  ;  a  trimmer. 
Fer,  for. 

Ferfle,  ferful,  fearful ;  also  an  intensive. 
Fin',  find. 

Fish-skin,  used  in  New  England  to  clarify 

coffee. 

Fix,  a  difficulty,  a  nonplus. 
Foller,  folly,  to  follow. 
Forrerd,  forward. 
Frum,  from. 
Fur,  far. 
Furder,  farther. 

Furrer,  furrow.  Metaphorically,  to  draw  a 
straight  furrow  is  to  live  uprightly  or  deco- 
rously. 

Fust,  first. 

G. 

Gin,  qave. 
Git,  get. 
Gret,  great. 

Grit,  spirit,  energy,  pluck. 

Grout,  to  stdk. 

Grouty,  crabbed,  surly. 

Gum,  to  impose  on. 

Gump,  a  foolish  fellow,  a  dullard. 

Gut,  got. 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


297 


H. 

Hed,  had. 
Heeni,  heard. 
Helium,  helm. 
Hendy,  handy. 
Het,  heated. 
Hev,  have. 
Hez,  has. 
Holl,  whole. 
Holt,  hold. 
Huf,  hoof. 
Hull,  whole. 
Hum,  home. 

Humbug,  General  Taylor's  antislavery. 
Hut,  hurt. 

L 

Idno,  J  do  no£  fcnow. 
In'my,  enemy. 

lnsines,  ensigns;  used  to  designate  both  the 
officer  who  carries  the  standard,  and  the 
standard  itself. 

Inter,  intu,  into. 

J. 

J  edge,  judge. 
Jest,  just. 
Jine,  join. 
Jint,  joint. 

Junk,  a  fragment  of  any  solid  substance. 


K 

Keer,  care. 
Kep',  kept. 

Killock,  a  mall  anchor. 

Kin',  kin'  o',  kinder,  kind,  kind  of. 


L. 

Lawth,  loath. 

Less,  let 's,  let  us. 

Let  daylight  into,  to  shoot. 

Let  on,  to  hint,  to  confess,  to  own. 

Lick,  to  beat,  to  overcome. 

Lights,  the  bowels. 

Lily-pads,  leaves  of  the  water-lily. 

Long-sweetening,  molasses. 


M. 

Mash,  marsh. 

Mean,  stingy,  ill-natured. 

Min',  mind. 

N. 

Nimepunce,  ninepence,  twelve  and  a  half  cents. 
Nowers,  nowhere. 

O. 

Offen,  often. 
Ole,  old. 

Oilers,  olluz,  always. 

On,  of;  used  before  it  or  tftem,  or  at  the  end  of 
a  sentence,  as  on't,  on'em,  nut  ez  ever  J 
heerd  on. 

On'y,  only. 

Ossifer,  officer  (seldom  heard). 


P. 

Peaked,  pointed. 
Peek,  to  peep. 
Pickerel,  the  pike,  a  fish. 
Pint,  point. 

Pocket  full  of  rocks,  plenty  of  money. 
Pooty,  pretty. 

Pop'ier,  conceited,  popular. 
Pus,  purse. 

Put  out,  troubled,  vexed. 


Quarter,  a  quarter-dollar. 
Queen's-arni,  a  musket. 


R. 

Resh,  rusk. 
Revelee,  the  reveille. 
Rile,  to  trouble. 

Riled,  angry ;  disturbed,  as  the  sediment  in  any 

liquid. 
Riz,  risen. 

Row,  a  long  row  to  hoe,  a  difficult  task. 
Rugged,  robust. 

S. 

Sarse,  abuse,  impertinence. 
Sartin,  certain, 
Saxon,  sacristan,  sexton. 
Scaliest,  worst 
Scringe,  cringe. 
Scrouge,  to  crowd, 
Sech,  such, 
Set  by,  valued. 

Shakes,  great  ,  of  considerable  consequence. 

Shappoes,  chapeaux,  cocked-hats. 

Sheer,  share. 

Shet,  shut. 

Shut,  shirt. 

Skeered,  scared. 

Skeeter,  mosquito. 

Skooting,  running,  or  moving  su'iftly. 
Slarterin',  slaughtering. 
Slim,  contemptible. 

Snake,  crawled  like  a  snake; bat  to  snake  any 
one  out  is  to  track  him  to  his  hiding-place ; 
to  snake  a  thing  out  is  to  snatch  it  out. 

Soffies,  sofas. 

Sogerin',  soldiering;  a  barbarous  amusement 

common  among  men  in  the  savage  state. 
Som'ers,  somewhere. 
So'st,  so  as  that. 
Sot,  set,  obstuiate,  resolute. 
Spiles,  spoils;  objects  of  political  ambition. 
Spry,  active. 

Staddles,  stout  stakes  driven  into  the  salt 
marshes,  on  which  the  hay-ricks  are  set,  and 
thus  raised  out  of  the  reach  of  high  tides. 

Streaked,  uncomfortable,  discomfited. 

Suckle,  circle, 

Sutthin',  something. 

Suttin,  certain. 

T. 

Take  on,  to  sorrow. 
Talents,  talons. 
Taters,  potatoes. 
Tell,  till 


298 


GLOSSARY. 


Tetch,  touch. 

Tetch  tu,  to  be  able ;  used  always  after  a  nega- 
tive in  this  sense. 
Tollable,  tolerable. 

Toot,  used  derisively  for  playing  on  any  wind 

instrument. 
Thru,  through. 

Thundering,  a  euphemism  common  in  New 
England  for  the  profane  English  expression 
devilish.  Perhaps  derived  from  the  belief, 
common  formerly,  that  thunder  was  caused 
by  the  Prince  of  the  Air,  for  some  of  whose 
accomplishments  consult  Cotton  Mather. 

Tu,  to,  too  ;  commonly  has  this  sound  when 
used  emphatically,  or  at  the  end  of  a  sen- 
tence. At  other  times  it  has  the  sound  of  t 
in  tough,  as,  Ware  ye  goin'  to  ?  Goin'  ta  Bos- 
ton. 

U. 

Ugly,  ill-tempered,  intractable. 

Uncle  Sam,  United  States;  the  largest  boaster 

of  liberty  and  owner  of  slaves. 
Unrizzest,  applied  to  dough  or  bread  ;  heavy, 

most  unrisen,  or  most  incapable  of  rising. 


V. 

V-spot,  a  five<lollar  bill. 
Vally,  value. 


W. 

Wake  snakes,  to  net  into  trouble. 

Wal,  well;  spoken  with  great  deliberation,  and 
sometimes  with  the  a  very  much  flattened, 
sometimes  (but  more  seldom)  very  much 

broadened. 
Wannut,  walnut  (hickory). 
Ware,  where. 
Ware,  were. 

Whopper,  an  uncommonly  large  He;  as,  that 
General  Taylor  is  in  favor  of  the  Wilmot  Pro- 
viso. 

Wig,  Whig;  a  party  now  dissolved. 
Wunt,  will  not. 
Wus,  worse. 
Wut,  what. 

Wuth,  worth;  as,  Antislavery  perfessions  'fore 

'lection  aint  wuth  a  Bungtown  copper. 
Wuz,  was,  sometimes  were. 


Y. 

Taller,  yellow. 
Teller,  yellow. 

Tellers,  a  disease  of  peach-trees. 


Z. 

Zach,  Ole,  a  second  Washington,  an  antislavery 
slaveholder;  a  humane  buyer  and  seller  of 
I    men  and  women,  a  Christian  hero  generally. 


INDEX. 


A. 

A.  wants  his  axe  ground,  257. 
<   A.  B.,  information  wanted  concerning,  190. 
Abraham  (Lincoln),  his  constitutional  scruples, 
257. 

Abuse,  an,  its  usefulness,  268. 

Adam,  eldest  son  of,  respected,  171  —  his  fall, 

274  — how  if  he  had  bitten  a  sweet  apple? 

277. 

Adam,  Grandfather,  forged  will  of,  246. 
iEneas  goes  to  hell,  198. 

iEolus,  a  seller  of  money,  as  is  supposed  by- 
some,  198. 

jEschylus,  a  saying  of,  183,  note. 

Alligator,  a  decent  one  conjectured  to  be,  in 
some  sort,  humane,  203. 

Allsmash,  the  eternal,  260. 

Alphonso  the  Sixth  of  Portugal,  tyrannical  act 
of,  204. 

Ambrose,  Saint,  excellent  (but  rationalistic) 

sentiment  of,  178. 
"American  Citizen,"  new  compost  so  called, 

198. 

American  Eagle,  a  source  of  inspiration,  181  — 
hitherto  wrongly  classed,  184  —  long  bill  of, 
ib. 

Americans  bebrothered,  241. 
Amos  cited,  178. 

Anakim,  that  they  formerly  existed,  shown,  204. 
Angels  providentially  speak  French,  174  —  con- 
jectured to  be  skilled  in  all  tongues,  ib. 
Anglo-Saxondom,  its  idea,  what,  174. 
Anglo-Saxon  mask,  174. 
Anglo-Saxon  race,  173. 

Anglo-Saxon  verse,  by  whom  carried  to  perfec- 
tion, 171. 

Anthony  of  Padua,  Saint,  happy  in  his  hearers, 
250. 

Antiquaries,  Royal  Society  of  Northern,  263. 
Antonius,  a  speech  of,  179  —  by  whom  best 

reported,  ib. 
Apocalypse,  beast  in,  magnetic  to  theologians, 

192. 

Apollo,  confessed  mortal  by  his  own  oracle, 
192. 

Apollyon,  his  tragedies  popular,  190. 
Appian,  an  Alexandrian,  not  equal  to  Shake- 
speare as  an  orator,  179. 
Applause,  popular,  the  summum  bonum,  265. 
Ararat,  ignorance  of  foreign  tongues  is  an,  184. 
Arcadian  background,  199. 
A  i  c'houskezik,  an  evil  spirit,  250. 
Ardennes,  Wild  Boar  of,  an  ancestor  of  Rev. 
'  Mr.  Wilbur,  232. 

Aristocracy,  British,  their  natural  sympathies, 


Aristophanes,  177. 

Arms,  profession  of,  once  esteemed  especially 

that  of  gentlemen,  171. 
Arnold,  180. 
Ashland,  199. 

Astor,  Jacob,  a  rich  man,  195. 

Astraea,  nineteenth  century  forsaken  by,  198. 

Athenians,  ancient,  an  institution  of,  179. 

Atherton,  Senator,  envies  the  loon,  186. 

"  Atlantic,"  editors  of.    See  Neptune. 

Atropos,  a  lady  skilful  with  the  scissors,  276. 

Austin,  Saint,  profane  wish  of,  180,  note  — 
prayer  of,  232. 

Austrian  eagle  split,  269. 

Aye-aye,  the,  an  African  animal,  America  sup- 
posed to  be  settled  by,  175. 


B. 

B. ,  a  Congressman,  vide  A. 

Babel,  probably  the  first  Congress,  184  — a 

gabble-mill,  ib. 
Baby,  a  low-priced  one,  197. 
Bacon,  his  rebellion,  251. 
Bacon,  Lord,  quoted,  251. 
Bagowind,  Hon.  Mr.,  whether  to  be  damned, 

187. 

Balcom,  Elder  Joash  Q. ,  2d,  founds  a  Baptist 

society  in  Jaalam,  A.  D.  1830,  283. 
Baldwin  apples,  204. 

Baratarias,  real  or  imaginary,  which  most 

pleasant,  198. 
Barnum,  a  great  natural  curiosity  recommended 

to,  183. 

Barrels,  an  inference  from  seeing,  204. 

Bartlett,  Mr.,  mistaken,  239. 

Baton  Rouge,  199  — strange  peculiarities  of 

laborers  at,  ib. 
Baxter,  R. ,  a  saying  of,  178. 
Bay,  Mattysqumscot,  203. 
Bay  State,  singular  effect  produced  on  military 

officers  by  leaving  it,  174. 
Beast,  in  Apocalypse,  a  loadstone  for  whom, 

192  —  tenth  horn  of,  applied  to  recent  events, 

275. 
Beaufort,  262. 

Beauregard  (real  name  Toutant),  242,  256. 

Beaver  brook,  287. 

Beelzebub,  his  rigadoon,  187. 

Behmen,  his  letters  not  letters,  191. 

Behn,  Mrs.  Aphra,  quoted,  251. 

Bellers,  a  saloon-keeper,  200  —  inhumanly  re- 
fuses credit  to  a  presidential  candidate, 
201. 

Belmont.   See  Woods. 

Bentley,  his  heroic  method  with  Milton,  264. 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


Bible,  not  composed  for  use  of  colored  persons, 

253. 

Biglow,  Ezekiel,  his  letter  to  Hon.  J.  T.  Buck- 
ingham, 169  —  never  heard  of  any  one  named 
Mundishes,  ib. —  nearly  fourscore  years  old, 
ib.  —  his  aunt  Keziah,  a  notable  saying  of,  ib. 

Biglow,  Hosea,  Esquire,  excited  by  composition, 

169  —  a  poem  by,  ib. ,  1SS  —  his  opinion  of  war, 

170  —  wanted  at  home  by  Nancy,  170  —  recom- 
mends a  forcible  enlistment  of  warlike  editors, 
ib.  —  would  not  wonder,  if  generally  agreed 
with,  171  — versifies  letter  of  Mr.  Sawin,  172 

—  a  letter  from,  172,  185  —  his  opinion  of  Mr. 
Sawin,  171 — does  not  deny  fun  at  Cornwal- 
lis,  172,  note —  his  idea  of  militia  glory,  173, 
note  —  a  pun  of,  173,  note  —  is  uncertain  in 
regard  to  people  of  Boston,  ib.  —  had  never 
heard  of  Mr.  John  P.  Robinson,  175  — cdiquid 
sufflcnninandus,  176  —  his  poems  attributed  to 
a  Mr.  Lowell,  177  —  is  unskilled  in  Latin,  ib. 

—  his  poetry  maligned  by  some,  178 — his  dis- 
interestedness, ib.  —  his  deep  share  in  com- 
mon-weal, ib.  — his  claim  to  the  presidency, 
ib.  —  his  mowing,  ib.  —  resents  being  called 
Whig,  ib.  — opposed  to  tariff,  ib.  — obstinate, 
ib. — infected  with  peculiar  notions,  ib. — 
reports  a  speech,  179  —  emulates  historians 
of  antiquity,  ib.  —  his  character  sketched 
from  a  hostile  point  of  view,  184 —  a  request 
of  his  complied  with,  1S7  —  appointed  at  a 
public  meeting  in  Jaalam,  191  —  confesses 
ignorance,  in  one  minute  particular,  of  pro- 
priety, ib.  — his  opinion  or'  cocked  hats,  ib. 

—  letter  to,  ib.  —  called  "Dear  Sir,"  by  a  gen- 
eral, ib.  —  probably  receives  same  compli- 
ment from  two  hundred  and  nine,  ib.  — picks 
his  apples,  204  —  his  crop  of  Baldwins  conjec- 
turally  large,  ib.  —  his  labors  in  writing  auto- 
graphs, 231  — visits  the  Judge  and  has  a  pleas- 
ant time,  239 — born  in  Middlesex  County, 
243  —  his  favorite  walks,  ib.  —  his  gifted  pen, 
259 — born  and  bred  in  the  country,  271  — 
feels  his  sap  start  in  spring,  272  —  is  at  times 
unsocial,  ib.  —  the  school-house  where  he 
learned  his  a  b  c,  ib.  — falls  asleep,  273  —  his 
ancestor  a  Cromwellian  colonel,  ib.  —  finds  it 
harder  to  make  up  his  mind  as  he  grows 
older,  274 — wishes  he  could  write  a  song  or 
two,  277  —  liable  to  moods,  285  —  loves  nature 
and  is  loved  in  return,  286  —  describes  some 
favorite  haunts  of  his,  2S6,  287  —  his  slain 
kindred,  287  —  his  speech  in  March  meeting, 
287  —  does  not  reckon  on  being  sent  to  Con- 
gress, 289  —  has  no  eloquence,  ib.  —  his  own 
reporter,  290  —  never  abused  the  South, 
ib.  — advises  Uncle  Sam,  ib.  — is  not  Boston- 
mad,  291  —  bids  farewell,  295. 

Billings,  Dea.  Cephas,  172. 

Billy,  Extra,  demagogus,  281. 

Birch,  virtue  of,  in  instilling  certain  of  the  dead 

languages,  197. 
Bird  of  our  country  sings  hosanna,  173. 
Bjarna  Grimolfsson  invents  smoking,  264. 
Blind,  to  go  it,  196. 

Blitz  pulls  ribbons  from  his  mouth,  173. 
Bluenose  potatoes,  smell  of,  eagerly  desired, 
173. 

Bobolink,  the,  272. 
Bobtail  obtains  a  cardinal's  hat,  175. 
Boggs,  a  Norman  name,  254. 
Bogus  Four-Corners  Weekly  Meridian,  265. 
Bolles,  Mr.  Secondary,  author  of  prize  peace 
essay,  172  — presents  sword  to  Lieutenant 


Colonel,  ib.  —  a  fluent  orator,  173  —  found  to 

be  in  error,  ib. 
Bonaparte,  N.,  a  usurper,  192. 
Bonds,  Confederate,  their  specie  basis  cutlery, 

236  —  when    payable,    (attention,  British 

stockholders  !)  260. 
Boot-trees,  productive,  where,  197. 
Boston,  people  of,  supposed  educated,  173, 

note  —  has  a  good  opinion  of  itself,  243. 
Bowers,  Mr.  Arphaxad,  an  ingenious  photo- 
graphic artist,  264. 
Brahmins,  navel-contemplating,  190. 
Brains,  poor  substitute  for,  244. 
Bread-trees,  197. 
Bream,  their  only  business,  239. 
Brigadier-Generals  in  militia,  devotion  of,  179. 
Brigadiers,  nursing  ones,  tendency  in,  to  literary 

composition,  233. 
Brigitta,  viridis,  280. 
Britannia,  her  trident,  249. 
Brotherhood,  subsides  after  election,  268. 
Brown,  Mr.,  engages  in  an  unequal  contest,  1S7. 
Browne,  Sir  T.,  a  pious  and  wise  sentiment  of, 

cited  and  commended,  171. 
Brutus  Four-Corners,  232. 
Buchanan,  a  wise  and  honest  man,  255. 
Buckingham,  Hon.  J.  T.,  editor  of  the  Boston 

Courier,  letters  to,  169,  171,  177,  185— not 

afraid,  172. 

Buffalo,  a  plan  hatched  there,  201  —  plaster,  a 

prophecy  in  regard  to,  202. 
Buffaloes,  herd  of,  probable  influence  of  tracts 

upon,  277. 

Bull,  John,  prophetic  allusion  to,  by  Horace, 
240  — his  "  Run,"  243  —  his  mortgage,  246  — 
unfortunate  dip  of,  261  —  wool  pulled  over 

his  eyes,  ib. 

Buncombe,  in  the  other  world  supposed,  179, 

—  mutual  privilege  in,  256. 
Bung,  the  eternal,  thought  to  be  loose,  170. 
Bungtown  Fencibles,  dinner  of,  175. 
Burke,  Mr.,  his  age  of  chivalry  surpassed,  254. 
Burleigh,  Lord,  quoted  for  something  said  in 

Latin  long  before,  251. 
Burns,  Robert,  a  Scottish  poet,  239. 
Bushv  Brook,  252. 
Butler,  Bishop,  259. 
Butter  in  Irish  bogs,  197. 


C. 

C,  General,  commended  for  parts,  176— for 
ubiquity,  ib.  —  for  consistency,  ib.  —  for 
fidelity,  ib. — is  in  favor  of  war,  ib. — his 
curious  valuation  of  principle,  ib. 

Cabbage-heads,  the,  always  in  majority,  289. 

Cabinet,  English,  makes  a  blunder,  241. 

Cresar,  tribute  to,  189  —  his  veni,  vidi,  vici, 
censured  for  undue  prolixity,  193. 

Cainites,  sect  of,  supposed  still  extant,  1TL 

Caleb,  a  monopoly  of  his  denied,  172 —  curious 
notions  of,  as  to  meaning  of  "  shelter,"  174 
—  his  definition  of  Anglo-Saxon,  ib.  —  charges 
Mexicans  (not  with  bayonets  but)  with  im- 
proprieties, ib. 

Calhoun,  Hon.  J.  C,  his  cow-bell  curfew,  light 
of  the  nineteenth  century  to  be  extinguished 
at  sound  of,  185  —  cannot  let  go  apron-string 
of  the  Past,  ib.  —  his  unsuccessful  tilt  at 
Spirit  of  the  Age,  ib.  —  the  Sir  Kay  of  mod- 
ern chivalry,  ib.  — his  anchor  made  of  a 
crooked  pin,  ib.  —  mentioned,  185  -  1S7. 


INDEX. 


301 


Calyboosus,  career,  282. 

Cambridge  Platform,  use  discovered  for,  175. 

Canaan  in  quarterly  instalments,  265. 

Canary  Islands,  197.  ' 

Candidate,  presidential,  letter  from,  191  — 
smells  a  rat,  ib.  —  against  a  bank,  ib.  —  takes 
a  revolving  position,  192  —  opinion  of  pledges, 
ib.  —  is  a  periwig,  ib.  —  fronts  south  by 
north,  ib.  —  qualifications  of,  lessening,  193  — 
wooden  leg  (and  head)  useful  to,  196. 

Cape  Cod  clergymen,  what,  175  —  Sabbath- 
breakers,  perhaps,  reproved  by,  ib. 

Captains,  choice  of,  important,  290. 

Carolina,  foolish  act  of,  290. 

Caroline,  case  of,  241. 

Carpini,  Father  John  de  Piano,  among  the  Tar- 
tars, 204. 

Cartier,  Jacques,  commendable  zeal  of,  204. 
Cass,  General,  186  —  clearness  of  his  merit,  ib. 

—  limited  popularity  at  "  Bellers's,"  200. 
Castles,  Spanish,  comfortable  accommodations 

in,  198. 

Cato,  letters  of,  so  called,  suspended  naso 

adunco,  191. 
C.  D.,  friends  of,  can  hear  of  him,  190. 
Century,  nineteenth,  255. 
Chalk  egg,  we  are  proud  of  incubation  of,  190. 
Chamberlayne,   Doctor,  consolatory  citation 

from,  251. 

Chance,  an  apothegm  concerning,  233  —  is  im- 
patient, 275. 

Chaplain,  a  one-horse,  stern-wheeled  variety  of, 
235. 

Chappelow  on  Job,  a  copy  of,  lost,  188. 
Charles  I.,  accident  to  his  neck,  274. 
Charles  II.,  his  restoration,  how  brought  about, 
274. 

Cherubusco,  news  of,  its  effects  on  English 

royalty,  183. 
Chesterfield  no  letter- writer,  191. 
Chief  Magistrate,  dancing  esteemed  sinful  by, 

175. 

Children  naturally  speak  Hebrew,  171. 
China-tree,  197. 

Chinese,  whether  they  invented  gunpowder  be- 
fore the  Christian  era  not  considered,  175. 
Choate  hired,  201. 

Christ  shuffled  into  Apocrypha,  175  —  conjec- 
tured to  disapprove  of  slaughter  and  pillage, 
176  —  condemns  a  certain  piece  of  barbarism, 
187. 

Christianity,  profession  of,  plebeian,  whether 
171. 

Christian     soldiers,    perhaps  inconsistent, 

whether,  179. 
Cicero,  289,  —  an  opinion  of,  disputed,  193. 
Cilley,  Ensign,  author  of  nefarious  sentiment, 

175. 

Cimex  lectulaHus,  173. 

Cincinnati,  old,  law  and  order  party  of,  269. 
Cincinnatus,  a  stock  character  in  modern  com- 
edy, 199. 

Civilization,  progress  of,  an  alias,  188— rides 

upon  a  powder-cart,  191. 
Clergymen,  their  ill  husbandry,  188— their 

place  in  processions,  199,  —  some,  cruelly 

banished  for  the  soundness  of  their  lungs, 

204. 

Clotho,  a  Grecian  lady,  276. 
Cocked-hat,  advantages  of  being  knocked  into, 
191. 

College  of  Cardinals,  a  strange  one,  175. 
Colman,  Dr.  Benjamin,  anecdote  of,  179. 


Colored  folks,  curious  national  diversion  of 
kicking,  173. 

Colquitt,  a  remark  of,  186  —  acquainted  with 
some  principles  of  aerostation,  ib. 

Columbia,  District  of,  its  peculiar  climatic  ef- 
fects, 180  —  not  certain  that  Martin  is  for 
abolishing  it,  201. 

Columbiads,  the  true  fifteen-inch  ones,  267. 

Columbus,  a  Paul  Pry  of  genius,  190  —  will  per- 
haps be  remembered,  263  —  thought  by  some 
to  have  discovered  America,  292. 

Columby,  200. 

Complete  Letter-Writer,  fatal  gift  of,  192. 

Compostella,  Saint  James  of,  seen,  174. 

Compromise  system,  the,  illustrated,  266. 

Conciliation,  its  meaning,  277. 

Congress,  singular  consequence  of  getting  into, 
180  —  a  stumbling-block,  256. 

Congressional  debates  found  instructive,  184. 

Constituents,  useful  for  what,  181. 

Constitution  trampled  on,  185  —  to  stand  upon, 
what,  191. 

Convention,  what,  181. 

Convention,  Springfield,  180. 

Coon,  old,  pleasure  in  skinning,  186. 

Co-operation  defined,  254. 

Coppers,  caste  in  picking  up  of,  195. 

Copres,  a  monk,  his  excellent  method  of  argu- 
ing, 184. 

Corduroy-road,  a  novel  one,  234. 

Corner-stone,  patent  safety,  256. 

Cornwallis,  a,  172  —  acknowledged  entertain- 
ing, ib.  note. 

Cotton  loan,  its  imaginary-  nature,  236. 

Cotton  Mather,  summoned  as  witness,  174. 

Country,  our,  its  boundaries  more  exactly 
defined,  177  —  right  or  wrong,  nonsense  about, 
exposed,  ib.  —  lawyers,  sent  providentially, 
ib.  —  Earth's  biggest,  gets  a  soul,  279. 

Courier,  The  Boston,  an  unsafe  print,  184. 

Court,  General,  farmers  sometimes  attain  seats 
in,  199. 

Court,  Supreme,  256. 

Courts  of  law,  English,  their  orthodoxy,  265. 
Cousins,  British,  our  ci-devant,  241. 
Cowper,  W. ,  his  letters  commended,  191. 
Credit  defined,  261. 
Creditors  all  on  Lincoln's  side,  256. 
Creed,  a  safe  kind  of,  196. 
Crockett,  a  good  rule  of,  236. 
Cruden,  Alexander,  his  Concordance,  232. 
Crusade,  first  American,  174. 
Cuneiform  script  recommended,  193. 
Curiosity  distinguishes  man  from  brutes,  190. 
Currency,  Ethiopian,  inconveniences  of,  236. 
Cynthia,  her  hide  as  a  means  of  conversion, 
238. 


D. 

Daedalus  first  taught  men  to  sit  on  fences,  252. 

Daniel  in  the  lion's  den,  235. 

Darkies  dread  freedom,  256. 

Davis,  Captain  Isaac,  finds  out  something  to 
his  advantage,  243. 

Davis,  Jefferson  (a  new  species  of  martyr),  has 
the  latest  ideas  on  all  subjects,  236  —  supe- 
rior in  financiering  to  patriarch  Jacob,  ib.  — 
is  some,  255  —  carries  Constitution  in  his  hat, 
256  —  knows  how  to  deal  with  his  Congress, 
ib. — astonished  at  his  own  piety,  260  — 
packed  up  for  Nashville,  261  —  tempted  to 


302 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


believe  his  own  lies,  262  — his  snake  egg,  267 
—  the  blood  on  his  hands,  287. 

Davis,  Mr.,  of  Mississippi,  a  remark  of  his,  186. 

Day  and  Martin,  proverbially  "on  hand,"  169. 

Death,  rings  down  curtain,  190. 

De  Bow  (a  famous  political  economist),  254. 

Delphi,  oracle  of,  surpassed,  183,  note  —  al- 
luded to,  192. 

Democracy,  false  notion  of,  257  —  its  privileges, 
278. 

Demosthenes,  289. 

Destiny,  her  account,  183. 

Devil,  the,  unskilled  in  certain  Indian  tongues 

174  —  letters  to  and  from,  191. 
Dey  of  Tripoli,  185. 

Didymus,  a  somewhat  voluminous  grammarian, 
192. 

Dighton  rock  character  might  be  usefully  em- 
ployed in  some  emergencies,  193. 

Dimitry  Bruisgins,  fresh  supply  of,  190. 

Diogenes,  his  zeal  for  propagating  certain  vari- 
ety of  olive,  197. 

Dioscuri,  imps  of  the  pit,  175. 

District- Attorney,  contemptible  conduct  of  one, 
185. 

Ditch  water  on  brain,  a  too  common  ailing,  185. 

Dixie,  the  land  of,  256. 

Doctor,  the,  a  proverbial  saying  of,  174. 

Doe,  Hon.  Preserved,  speech  of,  265-269. 

Doughface,  yeast-proof,  189. 

Downing  Street,  240. 

Drayton,  a  martyr,  185— north  star,  culpable 

for  aiding,  whether,  187. 
Dreams,  something  about,  273. 
Dwight,  President,  a  hymn  unjustly  attributed 

to,  275. 
D.  Y.,  letter  of,  191. 


E. 

Eagle,  national,  the  late,  his  estate  adminis- 
tered upon,  237. 

Earth,  Dame,  a  peep  at  her  housekeeping,  185. 

Eating  words,  habit  of,  convenient  in  time  of 
famine,  182. 

Eavesdroppers,  190. 

Echetlseus,  175. 

Editor,  his  position,  187  —  commanding  pulpit 
of,  188  —  large  congregation  of,  ib. — name 
derived  from  what,  ib.  —  fondness  for  mut- 
ton, ib.  —  a  pious  one,  his  creed,  ib.  —  a 
showman,  189  —  in  danger  of  sudden  arrest, 
without  bail,  190. 

Editors,  certain  ones  who  crow  like  cockerels, 
170. 

Edwards,  Jonathan,  284. 

Eggs,  bad,  the  worst  sort  of,  269. 

Egyptian  darkness,  phial  of,  use  for,  193. 

Eldorado,  Mr.  Sawin  sets  sail  for,  197. 

Elizabeth,  Queen,  mistake  of  her  ambassador, 

179. 
Emerson,  239. 
Emilius,  Paulus,  242. 
Empedocles,  190. 

Employment,  regular,  a  good  thing,  195. 

Enfield's  Speaker,  abuse  of,  268. 

England,  late  Mother-Country,  her  want  of 
tact,  240  —  merits  as  a  lecturer,  ib.  —  her 
real  greatness  not  to  be  forgotten,  242  —  not 
contented  (unwisely)  with  her  own  stock  of 
fools,  244  — natural  maker  of  international 
law,  ib.  —  her  theory  thereof,  ib.  —makes 


a  particularly  disagreeable  kind  of  sarse,  244 
—  somewhat  given  to  bullying,  ib.  — has  re- 
spectable relations,  245  —  ought  to  be  Co- 
lumbia's friend,  246  — anxious  to  buy  an 
elephant,  255. 

Epaulets,  perhaps  no  badge  of  saintship,  176. 

Epimenides,  the  Cretan  Rip  Van  Winkle,  250. 

Episcopius,  his  marvellous  oratory,  204. 

Eric,  king  of  Sweden,  his  cap,  198. 

Ericsson,  his  caloric  engine,  238. 

Eriksson,  Thorwald,  slain  by  natives,  265. 

Essence-pedlers,  257. 

Ethiopian,  the,  his  first  need,  259. 

Evangelists,  iron  ones,  175. 

Eyelids,  a  divine  shield  against  authors,  184. 

Ezekiel,  text  taken  from,  187. 

Ezekiel  would  make  a  poor  figure  at  a  caucus, 
270. 

F. 

Faber,  Johannes,  285. 

Factory-girls,  expected  rebellion  of,  186. 

Facts,  their  unamiability,  262  —  compared  to 

an  old-fashioned  stage-coach,  265. 
Falstaffii,  legio,  280. 

Family-trees,  fruit  of  jejune,  197  —  a  primitive 
forest  of,  266. 

Faneuil  Hall,  a  place  where  persons  tap  them- 
selves for  a  species  of  hydrocephalus,  185  — 
a  bill  of  fare  mendaciously  advertised  in,  197. 

Father  of  country,  his  shoes,  199. 

Female  Papists,  cut  off  in  the  midst  of  idol- 
atry, 198. 

Fenianorum,  rixce,  280. 

Fergusson,  his  "  Mutual  Complaint,"  &c,  239. 
F.  F.,  singular  power  of  their  looks,  256. 
Fire,  we  all  like  to  play  with  it,  185. 
Fish,   emblematic,  but  disregarded,  where, 
184. 

Fitz,  Miss  Parthenia  Almira,  a  sheresiarch, 

284. 

Flam,  President,  untrustworthy,  181. 
Flirt,  Mrs.,  251. 

Flirtilla,  elegy  on  death  of,  284. 

Floyd,  a  taking  character,  261. 

Floydus,  furcifer,  280. 

Fly-leaves,  providential  increase  of,  184. 

Fool,  a  cursed,  his  inalienable  rights,  278. 

Foote,  Mr.,  his  taste  for  field-sports,  186. 

Fourier,  a  squinting  toward,  184. 

Fourth  of  July  ought  to  know  its  place,  268. 

Fourth  of  Julys,  boiling,  180. 

France,  a  strange  dance  begun  in,  187  —  about 

to  put  her  foot  in  it,  255. 
Friar,  John,  241. 

Fuller,  Dr.  Thomas,  a  wise  saying  of,  176. 
Funnel,  old,  hurraing  in,  172. 


G. 

Gabriel,  his  last  trump,  its  pressing  nature,  266. 

Gardiner,  Lieutenant  Lion,  242. 

Gawain,  Sir,  his  amusements,  185. 

Gay,  S.  H.,  Esquire,  editor  of  National  Anti- 
slavery  Standard,  letter  to,  190. 

Geese,  how  infallibly  to  make  swans  of,  244. 

Gentleman,  high-toned  Southern,  scientifi- 
cally classed,  252. 

Getting  up  early,  170,  174. 

Ghosts,  some,  presumed  fidgety,  (but  see  Still- 
ing's  Pneumatology,)  190. 


INDEX. 


303 


Giants  formerly  stupid,  1S5. 

Gideon,  his  sword  needed,  247. 

Gift  of  tongues,  distressing  case  of,  184. 

Gilbert,  Sir  Humphrey,  264. 

Globe  Theatre,  cheap  season-ticket  to,  190. 

Glory,  a  perquisite  of  officers,  195  —  her  account 
with  B.  Sawin,  Esq. ,  197. 

Goatsnose,  the  celebrated,  interview  with,  193. 

God,  the  only  honest  dealer,  250. 

Goings,  Mehetable,  unfounded  claim  of,  dis- 
proved, 239. 

Gomara  has  a  vision,  174  —  his  relationship  to 

the  Scarlet  Woman,  ib. 
Governor,  our  excellent,  231. 
Grandfather,  Mr.  Biglow's,  safe  advice  of,  243. 
Grandfathers,  the,  knew  something,  248. 
Grand  jurors,  Southern,  their  way  of  finding  a 

true  bill,  235. 
Grantus,  Dux,  281. 

Gravestones,  the  evidence  of  Dissenting  ones 
held  doubtful,  265. 

Gray's  letters  are  letters,  191. 

Great  horn  spoon,  sworn  by,  186. 

Greeks,  ancient,  whether  they  questioned  can- 
didates, 193. 

Green  Man,  sign  of,  178. 

H. 

Habeas'  corpus,  new  mode  of  suspending  it, 
260. 

Hail  Columbia,  raised,  235. 

Ham,  sandwich,  an  orthodox  (but  peculiar)  one, 
187 — his  seed,  253 — their  privilege  in  the 
Bible,  ib.  —  immoral  justification  of,  ib. 

Hamlets,  machine  for  making,  194. 

Hammon,  183,  note,  192. 

Hampton  Roads,  disaster  in,  259. 

Hannegan,  Mr.,  something  said  by,  1S6. 

Harrison,  General,  how  preserved,  192. 

Hat,  a  leaky  one,  236. 

Hat-trees,  in  full  bearing,  197. 

Hawkins,  his  whetstone,  238. 

Hawkins,  Sir  John,  stout,  something  he  saw, 
197. 

Hawthorne,  239. 

Hay-rick,  electrical  experiments  with,  278. 
Headlong,  General,  242. 

Hell,  the  opinion  of  some  concerning,  273  — 

breaks  loose,  277. 
Henry  the  Fourth  of  England,  a  Parliament  of, 

how  named,  179. 
Hens,  self-respect  attributed  to,  233. 
Herb,  the  Circean,  265. 
Herbert,  George,  next  to  David,  250. 
Hercules,  his  second  labor  probably  what, 

204. 

Hermon,  fourth-proof  dew  of,  253. 
Herodotus,  story  from,  171. 
Hesperides,  an  inference  from,  198. 
Hessians,  native  American  soldiers,  256. 
Hickory,  Old,  his  method,  278. 
Higgses,  their  natural  aristocracy  of  feeling, 
254. 

Hitchcock,  Doctor,  264. 

Hitchcock,  the  Rev.  Jeduthun,  colleague  of 
Mr.  Wilbur,  232  —  letter  from,  containing  no- 
tices of  Mr.  Wilbur,  275  —  ditto,  enclosing 
macaronic  verses,  279  — teacher  of  high- 
school,  285. 

Hogs,  their  dreams,  233. 

Holden,  Mr.  Shearjashub,  Preceptor  of  Jaalam 
Academy,  192  —  his  knowledge  of  Greek  lim- 


ited, 193  —  a  heresy  of  his,  ib. — leaves  a 

fund  to  propagate  it,  ib. 
Holiday,  blind  man's,  295. 
Hollis,  Ezra,  goes  to  a  Cornwallis,  172. 
Hollow,  why  men  providentially  so  constructed, 

180. 

Holmes,  Dr.,  author  of  "Annals  of  America," 

232. 

Homer,  a  phrase  of,  cited,  188. 
Homer,  eldest  son  of  Mr.  Wilbur,  284. 
Homers,  democratic  ones,  plums  left  for,  181. 
Hotels,  big  ones,  humbugs,  248. 
House,  a  strange  one  described,  233. 
Howell,  James,  Esq.,  story  told  by,  179  — let- 
ters of,  commended,  191. 
Huldah,  her  bonnet,  274. 

Human  rights  out  of  order  on  the  floor  of 
Congress,  1S5. 

Humbug,  ascription  of  praise  to,  189  — gener- 
ally believed  in,  ib. 

Husbandry,  instance  of  bad,  176. 


I. 

Icarius,  Penelope's  father,  177. 

Icelander,  a  certain  uncertain,  264. 

Idea,  the  Southern,  its  natural  foes,  262  —  the 
true  American,  291. 

Ideas,  friction  ones  unsafe,  268. 

Idyl  defined,  239. 

Indecision,  mole-blind,  291. 

Infants,  prattlings  of,  curious  observation  con- 
cerning, 171. 

Information  wanted  (universally,  but  especially 
at  page),  190. 

Ishmael,  young,  248. 

J. 

Jaalam,  unjustly  neglected  by  great  events, 
264. 

Jaalam  Centre,  Anglo-Saxons  unjustly  sus- 
spected  by  the  young  ladies  there,  174  —  "  In- 
dependent Blunderbuss,"  strange  conduct  of 
editor  of,  187  —  public  meeting  at,  191  — 
meeting-house  ornamented  with  imaginary 
clock,  198. 

Jaalam,  East  Parish  of,  232. 

Jaalam  Point,  lighthouse  on,  charge  of,  pro- 
spectively offered  to  Mr.  H.  Biglow,  192. 

Jacobus,  rex,  280. 

Jakes,  Captain,  203  —  reproved  for  avarice,  ib. 
Jamaica,  290. 

James  the  Fourth,  of  Scots,  experiment  by, 
171. 

Jarnagin,  Mr.,  his  opinion  of  the  complete- 
ness of  Northern  education,  186. 

Jefferson,  Thomas,  well-meaning,  but  inju- 
dicious, 268. 

Jeremiah,  hardly  the  best  guide  in  modern 
politics,  270. 

Jerome,  Saint,  his  list  of  sacred  writers,  191. 

Jerusha,  ex-Mrs.  Sawin,  237. 

Job,  Book  of,  171  —  Chappelow  on,  188. 

Johnson,  Andrew,  as  he  used  to  be,  267  —  as 
he  is  :  see  Arnold,  Benedict. 

Johnson,  Mr.,  communicates  some  intelligence, 
187. 

Jonah,  the  inevitable  destiny  of,  187— prob- 
ably studied  internal  economy  of  the  ceta- 
cea,  190  —  his  gourd,  253  —  his  unanimity  in 
the  whale,  255. 


304 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


J onathan  to  John,  248. 
Jortin,  Dr.,  cited,  179,  183,  note. 
Journals,  British,  their  brutal  tone,  240. 
Juanito,  263. 

Judea,  everything  not  known  there,  177  —  not 

identical  with  A.  D. ,  274. 
Judge,  the,  his  garden,  239  —  his  hat  covers 

many  things,  ib. 
Juvenal,  a  saying  of,  183,  note. 

K. 

Kay,  Sir,  the,  of  modern  chivalry,  191  — who, 
185. 

Key,  brazen  one,  185. 

Keziah,  Aunt,  profound  observation  of,  169. 
Kinderhook,  199. 

Kingdom  Come,  march  to,  easy,  194. 
Konigsmark,  Count,  171. 

L. 

Lablache  surpassed,  258. 
Lacedaemonians  banish  a  great  talker,  188. 
Lamb,  Charles,  his  epistolary  excellence,  191. 
Latimer,  Bishop,  episcopizes  Satan,  171. 
Latin  tongue,  curious  information  concerning, 
177. 

Launcelot,  Sir,  a  trusser  of  giants  formerly, 
perhaps  would  find  less  sport  therein  now, 
185. 

Laura,  exploited,  284. 
Learning,  three-story,  272. 
Letcher,  de  la  vieille  roche,  254. 
Letcherus,  nebulo,  280. 

Letters  classed,    191 — their  shape,  ib. — of 

candidates,  192  —  often  fatal,  ib. 
Lettres  Cabalistiques,  quoted,  240. 
Lewis  Philip,  a  scourger  of  young  native 

Americans,  183  —  commiserated  (though  not 

deserving  it),  ib.  note. 
Lexington,  243. 

Liberator,  a  newspaper,  condemned  by  impli- 
cation, 178. 

Liberty,  unwholesome  for  men  of  certain  com- 
plexions, 188. 

Licking,  when  constitutional,  256. 

Lignum  vitse,  a  gift  of  this  valuable  wood  pro- 
posed, 174. 

Lincoln,  too  shrewd  to  hang  Mason  and  Slidell, 
262. 

Literature,  Southern,  its  abundance,  254. 

Little  Big  Boosy  River,  237. 

Longinus  recommends  swearing,  172,  note  (Fu- 

seli  did  same  thing). 
Long  sweetening  recommended,  194. 
Lord,  inexpensive  way  of  lending  to,  236. 
Lords,  Southern,  prove  pur  sang  by  ablution, 

254. 

Lost  arts,  one  sorrowfully  added  to  list  of,  204. 
Louis  the  Eleventh  of  France,  some  odd  trees 
of  his,  197. 

Lowell,  Mr.  J.  R. .  unaccountable  silence  of,  177. 
Luther,  Martin,  his  first  appearance  as  Europa, 

174. 
Lyaeus,  282. 

Lyttelton,  Lord,  his  letters  an  imposition,  191. 
M. 

Macrobii,  their  diplomacy,  193. 
Magoffin,  a  name  naturally  noble,  254. 
Mahomet,  got  nearer  Sinai  than  some,  188. 


I  Mahound,  his  filthy  gobbets,  174. 
Mandeville,  Sir  John,  quoted,  240. 
Mangum,  Mr. ,  speaks  to  the  point,  186. 
Manichaean,  excellently  confuted,  184. 
Man-trees,  grow  where,  197. 
Maori  chieftains,  241. 

Mapes,  Walter,  quoted,  241  —  paraphrased,  ib. 
Mares'-nests,  finders  of,  benevolent,  190. 
Marius,  quoted,  251. 
Marshfield,  199,  201. 

Martin,  Mr.  Sawiu  used  to  vote  for  him,  201. 
Mason  and  Dixon's  line,  slaves  north  of,  186. 
Mason  an  F.  F.  V. ,  262. 

Mason  and  Slidell,  how  they  might  have  been 
made  at  once  useful  and  ornamental,  262. 

Mass,  the,  its  duty  defined,  186. 

Massachusetts  on  her  knees,  170  ;  something 
mentioned  in  connection  with,  worthy  the 
attention  of  tailors,  180  ;  citizen  of,  baked, 
boiled,  and  roasted  (nefandum  !),  196. 

Masses,  the,  used  as  butter  by  some,  182. 

Maury,  an  intellectual  giant,  twin  birth  with 
Simms  (which  see),  254. 

Mayday  a  humbug,  270. 

M.  C. ,  an  invertebrate  animal,  183. 

Me,  Mister,  a  queer  creature,  272. 

Mechanics'  Fair,  reflections  suggested  at,  193, 
194. 

Medium,  ardentispirituale,  280. 

Mediums,  spiritual,  dreadful  liars,  274. 

Memminger,  old,  236. 

Mentor,  letters  of,  dreary,  191. 

Mephistopheles  at  a  nonplus,  187. 

Mexican  blood,  its  effect  in  raising  price  of 

cloth,  198. 
Mexican  polka,  175. 

Mexicans  charged  with  various  breaches  of  eti- 
quette, 174 —  kind  feelings  beaten  into  them, 
189. 

Mexico,  no  glory  in  overcoming,  181. 

Middleton,  Thomas,  quoted,  251. 

Military  glory  spoken  disrespectfully  of,  173, 

note  —  militia  treated  still  worse,  ib. 
Milk-trees,  growing  still,  197. 
Mill,  Stuart,  his  low  ideas,  261. 
Millenniums  apt  to  miscarry,  278. 
Millspring,  262. 

Mills  for  manufacturing  gabble,  how  driven, 
184. 

Mills,  Josiah's,  272. 

Milton,  an  unconscious  plagiary,  180,  note  —  a 
Latin  verse  of,  cited,  188 — an  English  poet, 
264—  his  "  Hymn  of  the  Nativity,"  276. 

Missionaries,  useful  to  alligators,  234  —  culi- 
nary liabilities  of,  253. 

Missions,  a  profitable  kind  of,  188. 

Monarch,  a  pagan,  probably  not  favored  in 
philosophical  experiments,  171. 

Money-trees,  desirable,  197  —  that  they  once 
existed  shown  to  be  variously  probable,  ib. 

Montaigne,  285. 

Montaigne,  a  communicative  old  Gascon,  190. 
Monterey,  battle  of,  its  singular  chromatic  effect 

on  a  species  of  two-headed  eagle,  183. 
Montezuma,  licked,  234. 

Moody,  Seth,  his  remarkable  gun,  237  — his 

brother  Asaph,  ib. 
Moquis  Indians,  praiseworthy  custom  of,  264. 
Moses,  held  up  vainly  as  an  example,  188  — 

construed  by  Joe  Smith,  ib.  —  (not,  A.  J. 

Moses)  prudent  way  of  following,  265. 
Muse  invoked,  280. 
Myths,  how  to  interpret  readily,  193. 


INDEX. 


305 


N. 

Naboths,  Popish  ones,  how  distinguished,  175. 
Nana  Sahib,  240. 

Nancy,  presumably  Mrs.  Biglow,  242. 

Napoleon  III. ,  his  new  chairs,  259. 

Nation,  rights  of,  proportionate  to  size,  174  — 
young,  its  first  needs,  260. 

National  pudding,  its  effect  on  the  organs  of 
speech,  a  curious  physiological  fact,  175. 

Negroes,  their  double  usefulness,  236  —  getting 
too  current,  261. 

Nephelim,  not  yet  extinct,  204. 

New  England  overpoweringly  honored,  182  — 
wants  no  more  speakers,  ib.  — done  brown 
by  whom,  ib.  — her  experience  in  beans  be- 
yond Cicero's,  193. 

Newspaper,  the,  wonderful,  189  —  a  strolling 
theatre,  ib.  —  thoughts  suggested  by  tearing 
wrapper  of,  190  —  a  vacant  sheet,  ib. — a 
sheet  in  which  a  vision  was  let  down,  ib.  — 
wrapper  to  a  bar  of  soap,  ib.  —  a  cheap  im- 
promptu platter,  ib. 

New  World,  apostrophe  to,  248. 

New  York,  letters  from,  commended,  191. 

Next  life,  what,  188. 

Nicotiana  Tabacum,  a  weed,  264. 

Niggers,  176  —  area  of  abusing,  extended,  181 
—  Mr.  Sawin's  opinions  of,  202. 

Ninepence  a  day  low  for  murder,  172. 

No,  a  monosyllable,  175 — hard  to  utter,  ib. 

Noah  enclosed  letter  in  bottle,  probably,  190. 

Noblemen,  Nature's,  255. 

Nomas,  Lapland,  what,  198. 

North,  the,  has  no  business,  186  —  bristling, 
crowded  off  roost,  192  — its  mind  naturally 
unprincipled,  268. 

North  Bend,  geese  inhumanly  treated  at,  192  — 
mentioned,  199. 

North  star,  a  proposition  to  indict,  187. 

Northern  Dagon,  237. 

Northmen,  gens  inclytissima,  263. 

Notre  Dame  de  la  Haine,  252. 

Now,  its  merits,  272. 

Nowhere,  march  to,  273. 


O. 

O'Brien,  Smith,  240. 
Off  ox,  191. 

Officers,  miraculous  transformation  in  charac- 
ter of,  174  —  Anglo-Saxon,  come  very  near 
being  anathematized,  ib. 

Old  age,  an  advantage  of,  239. 

Old  One,  invoked,  258. 

Oriesimus  made  to  serve  the  cause  of  impiety, 
253. 

O'Phace,  Increase  D.,  Esq.,  speech  of,  179. 
Opinion,  British,  its  worth  to  us,  241. 
Opinions,  certain  ones  compared  to  winter  flies, 
250. 

Oracle  of  Fools,  still  respectfully  consulted, 
179. 

Orion  becomes  commonplace,  190. 
Orrery,  Lord,  his  letters  (lord  !)  191. 
Ostracism,  curious  species  of,  179. 
Ovidii  Nasonis,  carmen  supposititium,  280. 

P. 

Palestine,  174. 

Paley,  his  Evidences,  294. 


Palfrey,  Hon.  J.  G.,  180,  182  (a  worthy  repre- 
sentative of  Massachusetts). 

Pantagruel  recommends  a  popular  oracle,  179. 

Panurge,  241  —  his  interview  with  Goatsnose, 
193. 

Paper,  plausible-looking,  wanted,  260. 
Papists,  female,  slain  by  zealous  Protestant 

bomb-shell,  198. 
Paralipoinenon,  a  man  suspected  of  being,  192. 
Paris,  liberal  principles  safe  as  far  away  as, 

188. 

Parliamentum  Indoctorum  sitting  in  perma- 
nence, 179. 

Past,  the,  a  good  nurse,  185. 

Patience,  sister,  quoted,  173. 

Patriarchs,  the,  illiterate,  238. 

Patricius,  brogipotens,  280. 

Paynims,  their  throats  propagandistically  cut, 
174. 

Penelope,  her  wise  choice,  177. 

People,  soft  enough,  188  —  want  correct  ideas, 

196  —  the,  decline  to  be  Mexicanized,  266. 
Pepin,  King,  191. 
Pepperell,  General,  quoted,  242. 
Pequash  Junction,  285. 
Periwig,  192. 

Perley,  Mr.  Asaph,  has  charge  of  bass-viol,  250. 

Perseus,  King,  his  avarice,  242. 

Persius,  a  pithy  saying  of,  182,  note. 

Pescara,  Marquis,  saying  of,  171. 

Peter,  Saint,  a  letter  of  (post-mortem),  191. 

Petrarch,  exploited  Laura,  284. 

Petronius,  241. 

Pettibone,  Jabez,  bursts  up,  254. 

Pettus  came  over  with  Wilhelmus  Conquistor, 

254. 
Phaon,  284. 

Pharaoh,  his  lean  kine,  247. 
Pharisees,  opprobriously  referred  to,  188. 
Philippe,  Louis,  in  pea-jacket,  189. 
Phillips,  Wendell,  catches  a  Tartar,  269. 
Phlegyas  quoted,  187. 

Phrygian  language,  whether  Adam  spoke  it, 
171. 

Pickens,  a  Norman  name,  254. 
Pilcoxes,  genealogy  of,  232. 
Pilgrim  Father,  apparition  of,  273. 
Pilgrims,  the,  181. 
Pillows,  constitutional,  183. 
Pine-trees,  their  sympathy,  272. 
Pinto,  Mr.,  some  letters  of  his  commended, 
191. 

Pisgah,  an  impromptu  one,  198. 
Platform,  party,  a  convenient  one,  196. 
Plato,  supped  with,  190 — his  man,  192. 
Pleiades,  the,  not  enough  esteemed,  190. 
Pliny,  his  letters  not  admired,  191. 
Plotinus,  a  story  of,  185. 

Plymouth  Rock,  Old,  a  Convention  wrecked 
on,  181. 

Poets  apt  to  become  sophisticated,  270. 
Point  Tribulation,  Mr.  Sawin  wrecked  on,  197. 
Poles,  exile,  whether  crop  of  beans  depends  on, 

173,  note. 
Polk,  nomen  gentile,  254. 

Polk,  President,  synonymous  with  our  coun- 
try, 176  —  censured,  181  —  in  danger  of  being 
crushed,  132. 

Polka,  Mexican,  175. 

Pomp,  a  runaway  slave,  his  nest,  202  —  hypo- 
critically groans  like  white  man,  ib.  — blind 
to  Christian  privileges,  ib.  — his  society 
valued  at  iifty  dollars,  ib.  —  his  treachery, 


306 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


203  —  takes  Mr.  Sawin  prisoner,  ib.  —  cruelly 
makes  him  work,  ib.  —  puts  himself  illegally 
under  his  tuition,  ib.  —  dismisses  him  with 
contumelious  epithets,  ib.  —  a  negro,  234. 

Pontifical  bull  a  tamed  one,  174. 

Pope,  his  verse  excellent,  171. 

Pork,  refractory  in  boiling,  174. 

Portico,  the,  284. 

Portugal,  Alphonso  the  Sixth  of,  a  monster, 
204. 

Post,  Boston,  177  —  shaken  visibly,  178  —  bad 
guide-post,  ib.  —  too  swift,  ib.  —  edited  by  a 
colonel,  ib.  —  who  is  presumed  officially  in 
Mexico,  ib.  —  referred  to,  184. 

Pot-hooks,  death  in,  193. 

Power,  a  first-class,  elements  of,  259. 

Preacher,  an  ornamental  symbol,  188  —  a 
breeder  of  dogmas,  ib.  — earnestness  of,  im- 
portant, 204. 

Present,  considered  as  an  annalist,  188  —  not 
long  wonderful,  190. 

President,  slaveholding  natural  to,  189  —  must 
be  a  Southern  resident,  197  —  must  own  a 
nigger,  ib.  —  the,  his  policy,  291  —  his  resem- 
blance to  Jackson,  292. 

Princes  mix  cocktails,  260. 

Principle,  exposure  spoils  it,  180. 

Principles,  bad,  when  less  harmful,  175  —  when 
useless,  267. 

Professor,  Latin,  in   College,  279  —  Scal- 

iger,  280. 

Prophecies,  fulfilment  of,  262. 

Prophecy,  a  notable  one,  183,  note. 

Prospect  Hill,  243. 

Providence  has  a  natural  life-preserver,  248. 
Proviso,  bitterly  spoken  of,  191. 
Prudence,  sister,  her  idiosyncratic  teapot,  195. 
Psammeticus,  an  experiment  of,  171. 
Psyche,  poor,  285. 

Public  opinion,  a  blind  and  drunken  guide,  175 
—  nudges  Mr.  Wilbur's  elbow,  ib.  — ticklers 
of,  181. 

Punkin  Falls  "Weekly  Parallel,"  275. 
Putnam,  General  Israel,  his  lines,  243. 
Pythagoras  a  bean-hater,  why,  193. 
Pythagoreans,  fish  reverenced  by,  why,  185. 


Q. 

Quid,  ingens  nicotianum,  281. 
Quixote,  Don,  185. 

R. 

Rafn,  Professor,  263. 

Rag,  one  of  sacred  college,  175. 

Rantoul,  Mr.,  talks  loudly,  172  — pious  reason 

for  not  enlisting,  ib. 
Recruiting  sergeant,  Devil  supposed  the  first, 

171. 

Religion,  Southern,  its  commercial  advantages, 
252. 

Representatives'  Chamber,  185. 
Rhinothism,  society  for  promoting,  190. 
Rhyme,  whether  natural  not  considered,  171. 
Rib,  an  infrangible  one,  194. 
Richard  the  First  of  England,  his  Christian  fer- 
vor, 174. 

Riches  conjectured  to  have  legs  as  well  as 

wings,  187. 
Ricos  Hombres,  251. 
Ringtail  Rangers,  238. 


Roanoke  Island,  262. 

Robinson,   Mr.  John  P.,  his  opinions  fully 

stated,  176,  177. 
Rocks,  pocket  full  of,  195. 
Roosters  in  rainy  weather,  their  misery,  233. 
Rotation  insures  mediocrity  and  inexperience, 

Rough  and  ready,  200  —  a  wig,  201  —  a  kind  of 

scratch,  ib. 
Royal  Society,  American  fellows  of,  275. 
Rum  and  water  combine  kindly,  265. 
Runes  resemble  bird-tracks,  264. 
Runic  inscriptions,  their  different  grades  of  un- 

intelligibility  and  consequent  value,  263. 
Russell,  Earl,  is  good  enough  to  expound  our 

Constitution  for  us,  240. 
Russian  eagle  turns  Prussian  blue,  183. 
Ryeus,  Bacchi  epitheton,  282. 

S. 

Sabbath,  breach  of,  164. 
Sabellianism,  one  accused  of,  192. 
Sailors,  their  rights  how  won,  246. 
Saltillo,  unfavorable  view  of,  173. 
Salt-river,  in  Mexican,  what,  173. 
Samuel,  avunculus,  281. 

Samuel,  Uncle,  235  —  riotous,  183  —  yet  has 
qualities  demanding  reverence,  188  —  a  good 
provider  for  his  family,  ib.  —  an  exorbitant 
bill  of,  198  —  makes  some  shrewd  guesses, 
248  -  250  —  expects  his  boots,  255. 

Sansculottes,  draw  their  wine  before  drinking, 
186. 

Santa  Anna,  his  expensive  leg,  196. 

Sappho,  some  human  nature  in,  284. 

Sassy  Cus,  an  impudent  Indian,  242. 

Satan,  never  wants  attorneys,  174  —  an  expert 
talker  by  signs,  ib. — a  successful  fisherman 
with  little  or  no  bait,  ib.  —  cunning  fetch  of, 
175  —  dislikes  ridicule,  178  —  ought  not  to 
have  credit  of  ancient  oracles,  183,  note  —  his 
worst  pitfall,  253. 

Satirist,  incident  to  certain  dangers,  176. 

Savages,  Canadian,  chance  of  redemption  of- 
fered to,  204. 

Sawin,  B.,  Esquire,  his  letter  not  written  in 
verse,  171  —  a  native  of  Jaalam,  ib.  — not 
regular  attendant  on  Rev.  Mr.  Wilbur's 
preaching,  172  —  a  fool,  ib.  —  his  statements 
trustworthy,  ib.  —  his  ornithological  tastes, 
ib.  —  letter  from,  171,  193,  199  — his  curious 
discovery  in  regard  to  bayonets,  172  —  dis- 
plays proper  family  pride,  ib.  —  modestly 
confesses  himself  less  wise  than  the  Queen 
of  Sheba,  173  — the  old  Adam  in,  peeps  out, 
174  —  a  miles  emeritus,  193  —  is  made  text  for 
a  sermon,  ib.  —  loses  a  leg,  194  —  an  eye,  ib. 

—  left  hand,  ib.  —  four  fingers  of  right  hand, 
ib.  —  has  six  or  more  ribs  broken,  ib.  — a  rib 
of  his  infrangible,  ib.—  allows  a  certain 
amount  of  preterite  greenness  in  himself,  ib. 

—  his  share  of  spoil  limited,  195  —  his  opin- 
ion of  Mexican  climate,  ib.  —  acquires  prop- 
erty of  a  certain  sort,  ib.  —  his  experience  of 
glory,  196  — stands  sentry,  and  puns  there- 
upon, ib.  —  undergoes  martyrdom  in  some  of 
its  most  painful  forms,  ib.  —  enters  the  candi- 
dating  business,  ib.  — modestly  states  the 
(avail)abilities  which  qualify  him  for  high  po- 
litical station,  196,197  —  has  no  principles, 
196 — a  peaceman,  ib.  — unpledged,  ib.  — has 
no  objections  to  owning  peculiar  property,  but 


INDEX. 


307 


would  not  like  to  monopolize  the  truth,  197 

—  his  account  with  glory,  ib.  —  a  selfish  mo- 
tive hinted  in,  ib.  —  sails  for  Eldorado,  ib.  — 
shipwrecked  on  a  metaphorical  promontory, 
ib.  —  parallel  between,  and  Rev.  Mr.  Wilbur 
(not  Plutarchian),  198 — conjectured  to  have 
bathed  in  river  Selemnus,  199  —  loves  plough 
wisely,  but  not  too  well,  ib.  —  a  foreign  mis- 
sion probably  expected  by,  ib.  —  unanimous- 
ly nominated  for  presidency,  ib.  —  his  coun- 
try's father-in-law,  200  —  nobly  emulates 
Cincinnatus,  ib.  —  is  not  a  crooked  stick,  ib. 

—  advises  his  adherents,  ib.  —  views  of,  on 
present  state  of  politics,  199-201  — popular 
enthusiasm  for,  at  Bellers's,  and  its  disagree- 
able consequences,  200  —  inhuman  treatment 
of,  by  Bellers,  201— his  opinion  of  the  two 
parties,  ib.  —  agrees  with  Mr.  Webster,  ib.  — 
his  antislavery  zeal,  201  —  his  proper  self- 
respect,  202  —  his  unaffected  piety,  ib.  —  his 
not  intemperate  temperance,  ib.  —  a  thrilling 
adventure  of,  202-  203  — his  prudence  and 
economy,  202  —  bound  to  Captain  Jakes,  but 
regains  his  freedom,  203  —  is  taken  prisoner, 
ib.  —  ignominiously  treated,  ib.  —  his  conse- 
quent resolution,  ib. 

Sawin,  Honorable  B.  O'F.,  a  vein  of  humor  sus- 
pected in,  232  —  gets  into  an  enchanted  cas- 
tle, 233  —  finds  a  wooden  leg  better  in  some 
respects  than  a  living  one,  234  —  takes  some- 
thing hot,  ib.  —  his  experience  of  Southern 
hospitality,  234,  235  —  waterproof  internally, 
234  —  sentenced  to  ten  years'  imprisonment, 
235 — his  liberal-handedness,  236  —  gets  his 
arrears  of  pension,  ib.  — marries  the  Widow 
Shannon,  237 — confiscated,  ib. — finds  in 
himself  a  natural  necessity  of  income,  238  — 
his  missionary  zeal,  ib. — never  a  stated  at- 
tendant on  Mr.  Wilbur's  preaching,  250  — 
sang  base  in  choir,  ib.  —  prudently  avoided 
contribution  toward  bell,  ib.  —  abhors  a  cov- 
enant of  works,  252  —  if  saved  at  all,  must  be 
saved  genteelly,  ib.  — reports  a  sermon,  253 

—  experiences  religion,  ib. — would  consent 
to  a  dukedom,  254  —  converted  to  unanimity, 
255  —  sound  views  of,  256  —  makes  himself 
an  extempore  marquis,  257  —  extract  of  let- 
ter from,  294,  295  —  his  opinion  of  Paddies, 
294  — of  Johnson,  295. 

Sayres,  a  martyr,  185. 
Scaliger,  saying  of,  176. 
Scarabams  pilularius,  173. 
Scott,  General,  his  claims  to  the  presidency, 
178,  179. 

Scrimgour,  Rev.  Shearjashub,  283. 
Scythians,  their  diplomacy  commended,  193. 
Sea,  the  wormy,  264. 
Seamen,  colored,  sold,  171. 
Secessia,  licta,  281. 

Secession,  its  legal  nature  defined,  237. 

Secret,  a  great  military,  270. 

Selemnus,  a  sort  of  Lethean  river,  199. 

Senate,  debate  in,  made  readable,  185. 

Seneca,  saying  of,  175  — another,  183,  note  — 
overrated  by  a  saint  (but  see  Lord  Boling- 
broke's  opinion  of,  in  a  letter  to  Dean  Swift), 
191  —  his  letters  not  commended,  ib.  —  a  son 
of  Rev.  Mr.  Wilbur,  198  —  quoted,  276,  277. 

Serbonian  bog  of  literature,  184. 

Sermons,  some  pitched  too  high,  250. 

Seward,  Mister,  the  late,  his  gift  of  prophecy, 
243  —  needs  stiffening,  291  —  misunderstands 
parable  of  fatted  calf,  ib. 


Sextons,  demand  for,  173  —  heroic  official  de- 
votion of  one,  204. 

Seymour,  Governor,  277. 

Shakespeare,  285  —  a  good  reporter,  179. 

Shaking  fever,  considered  as  an  employment,  195. 

Sham,  President,  honest,  181. 

Shannon,  Mrs.,  a  widow,  235  —  her  family  and 
accomplishments,  237  —  has  tantrums,  ib.  — 
her  religious  views,  252  —  her  notions  of  a 
moral  and  intellectual  being,  253  —  her 
maiden  name,  254 — her  blue  blood,  ib. 

Sheba,  Queen  of,  173. 

Sheep,  none  of  Rev.  Mr.  Wilbur's  turned  wolves, 
171. 

Shem,  Scriptural  curse  of,  203. 
Shiraz,  Centre,  lead-mine  at,  254. 
Shirley,  Governor,  242. 

Shoddy,  poor  covering  for  outer  or  inner  man, 
274. 

Shot  at  sight,  privilege  of  being,  255. 
Show,  natural  to  love  it,  173,  note.  ~~ 
Silver  spoon  born  in  Democracy's  mouth,  what, 
182. 

Sin,  wilderness  of,  modern,  what,  188. 

Sinai  suffers  outrages,  188. 

Skim-milk  has  its  own  opinions,  273, 

Skin,  hole  in,  strange  taste  of  some  for,  195. 

Skippers,  Yankee,  busy  in  the  slave-trade,  253. 

Simms,  an  intellectual  giant,  twin-birth  with 
Maury  (which  see),  254. 

Slaughter,  whether  God  strengthen  us  for,  175. 

Slaughterers  and  soldiers  compared,  199. 

Slaughtering  nowadays  is  slaughtering,  199. 

Slavery,  of  no  color,  170  —  corner-stone  of 
liberty,  184  —  also  keystone,  186  —  last  crumb 
of  Eden,  187  —  a  Jonah,  ib.  —  an  institution, 
192  —  a  private  State  concern,  202. 

Slidell,  New  York  trash,  262. 

Sloanshure,  Habakkuk,  Esquire,  President  of 
Jaalam  Bank,  258. 

Smith,  Joe,  used  as  a  translation,  188. 

Smith,  John,  an  interesting  character,  190. 

Smith,  Mr.,  fears  entertained  for,  187— dined 
with,  190. 

Smith,  N.  B.,  his  magnanimity,  189. 

Smithius,  dux,  200. 

Soandso,  Mr.,  the  great,  defines  his  position, 
188. 

Soft-heartedness,  misplaced,  is  soft-headed- 
ness,  278. 

Sol,  the  fisherman,  173  —  soundness  of  respira- 
tory organs  hypothetically  attributed  to,  ib. 

Soldiers,  British,  ghosts  of,  insubordinate,  243. 

Solomon,  Song  of,  portions  of  it  done  into  Latin 
verse  by  Mr.  Wilbur,  279. 

Solon,  a  saying  of,  175. 

Soul,  injurious  properties  of,  257. 

South,  the,  its  natural  eloquence,  268  —  facts 
have  a  mean  spite  against,  262. 

South  Carolina,  futile  attempt  to  anchor,  185 
—  her  pedigrees,  251. 

Southern  men,  their  imperfect  notions  of  labor, 
235  — of  subscriptions,  236  — too  high-pres- 
sure, 238 — prima  facie  noble,  254. 

Spanish,  to  walk,  what,  174. 

Speech-making,  an  abuse  of  gift  of  speech,  184. 

Spirit-rapping  does  not  repay  the  spirits  en- 
gaged in  it,  274. 

Split-Foot,  Old,  made  to  squirm,  238. 

Spring,  described,  270,  271. 

Star,  north,  subject  to  indictment,  whether,  187. 

Statesman,  a  genuine,  defined,  268. 

Stearns,  Othniel,  fable  by,  293. 


308 


THE  BIGLOW  PAPERS. 


Stone  Spike,  the,  243. 
Store,  cheap  cash,  a  wicked  fraud,  198. 
Strong,  Governor  Caleb,  a  patriot,  177. 
Style,  the  catalogue,  271. 
Sumter,  shame  of,  247. 
Sunday  should  mind  its  own  business,  268. 
Swearing  commended  as  a  figure  of  speech,  172, 
note. 

Swett,  Jethro  C,  his  fall,  28S. 

Swift,  Dean,  threadbare  saying  of,  178. 


T. 

Tag,  elevated  to  the  Cardinalate,  175. 

Taney,  C.  J. ,  257. 

Taraudfeather,  Rev.  Mr.,  255. 

Tarbox  Shearjashub,  first  white  child  born  in 

Jaalam,  239. 
Tartars,  Mongrel,  234. 
Taxes,  direct,  advantages  of,  198. 
Taylor,  General,  greased  by  Mr.  Choate,  201. 
Taylor  zeal,  its  origin,  200. 
Teapots,  how  made  dangerous,  277. 
Ten,  the  upper,  255. 

Tesephone.  banished  for  long-windedness,  184. 

Thacker,  Rev.  Preserved,  D.  D.,  275. 

Thanks  get  lodged,  195. 

Thanksgiving,  Feejee,  234. 

Thaumaturgus,  Saint  Gregory,  letter  of,  to  the 

Devil,  191. 
Theleme,  Abbey  of,  258. 

Theocritus,  the  inventor  of  idyllic  poetry,  239. 
Theory,  defined,  265. 
Thermopyles,  too  many,  262. 
"  They  '11  say  "  a  notable  bully.  246. 
Thirty-nine  articles  might  be  'made  serviceable, 
175. 

Thor,  a  foolish  attempt  of,  185. 
Thoreau,  239. 

Thoughts,  live  ones  characterized,  286. 
Thumb,  General  Thomas,  a  valuable  member  of 

society,  183. 
Thunder,  supposed  in  easy  circumstances,  194. 
Thynne,  Mr.,  murdered,  171. 
Tibullus,  276. 

Time,  an  innocent  personage  to  swear  by,  172, 

note  —  a  scene-shifter,  190. 
Tinkham,  Deacon  Pelatiah,  story  concerning, 

not  told,  233  —  alluded  to,  239  —  does  a  very 

sensible  thing,  252. 
Toms,  peeping,  190. 
Toombs,  a  doleful  sound  from,  262. 
Trees,  various  kinds  of  extraordinary  ones,  197. 
Trowbridge,  William,  mariner,  adventure  of,  175. 
Truth  and  falsehood  start  from  same  point,  176 

—  truth  invulnerable  to  satire,  ib.  —  compared 

to  a  river,  179  —  of  fiction  sometimes  truer 

than  fact,  ib.  —  told  plainly,  passim. 
Tuileries,  exciting  scene  at,  183  —  front  parlor 

of,  259. 

Tully,  a  saying  of,  180,  note. 
Tunnel,  northwest-passage,  a  poor  investment, 
258. 

Turkey-Buzzard  Roost,  237. 
Tuscaloosa,  237. 

Tutchel,  Rev.  Jonas,  a  Sadducee,  265. 
Tweedledee,  gospel  according  to,  188. 
Tweedledum,  great  principles  of,  188. 
Tyler us,  juvenis  insignis,  280  —  porphyrogenitus, 

2S1 — JoJiannides,   Jlito    ceteris,    282  —  bene 

titus,  ib. 

Tyrants,  European,  how  made  to  tremble,  235. 


U. 

Ulysses,  husband  of  Penelope,  177  — borrows 
money,  198  (for  full  particulars  of,  see  Homer 
and  Dante)  —  rex,  280. 

Unanimity,  new  ways  of  producing,  255. 

Union,  its  hoops  off,  255  —  its  good  old  mean- 
ing, 266. 

Universe,  its  breeching,  255. 

University,  triennial  catalogue  of,  178. 

Us,  nobody  to  be  compared  with,  235,  and  see 
World,  passim. 


V. 

Van  Buren  fails  of  gaining  Mr.  Sawin's  confi- 
dence, 202  —  his  son  John  reproved,  ib. 

Van,  Old,  plan  to  set  up,  201. 

Vattel,  as  likely  to  fall  on  your  toes  as  on  mine, 
249. 

Venetians  invented  something  once,  198. 
Vices,  cardinal,  sacred  conclave  of,  175. 
Victoria,  Queen,  her  natural  terror,  183  — her 

best  carpets,  259. 
Vinland,  264. 

Virgin,  the,  letter  of,  to  Magistrates  of  Messina, 
191. 

Virginia,  descripta,  280,  281. 
Virginians,  their  false  heraldry,  251. 
Voltaire,  esprit  de,  280. 

Vratz,  Captain,  a  Pomeranian,  singular  views  of, 


W. 

Wachuset  Mountain,  246. 
Wait,  General,  242. 

Wales,  Prince  of,  calls  Brother  Jonathan  con- 
sanguineus  noster,  241  —  but  had  not,  appar- 
ently, consulted  the  Garter  King  at  Arms,  ib. 

Walpole,  Horace,  classed,  190  —  his  letters 
praised,  191. 

Waltham  Plain,  Cornwallis  at,  172. 

Walton,  punctilious  in  his  intercourse  with 
fishes,  175. 

War,  abstract,  horrid,  191  —  its  hoppers,  grist 

of,  what,  195. 
Warren,  Fort,  277. 
Warton,  Thomas,  a  story  of,  179. 
Washington,  charge  brought  against,  200. 
Washington,  city  of,  climatic  influence  of,  on 

coats,  180j — mentioned,  185 — grand  jury  of, 

187. 

Washingtons,  two  hatched  at  a  time  by  im- 
proved machine,  200. 
Watchmanns,  noctivagus,  2S2. 
Water,  Taunton,  proverbially  weak,  202. 
Water-trees,  197. 
We,  272. 

Weakwash,  a  name  fatally  typical,  242. 
Webster,  his  unabridged  quarto,  its  deleterious- 
ness,  279. 

Webster,  some  sentiments  of,  commended  by 

Mr.  Sawin,  201. 
Westcott,  Mr.,  his  horror,  187. 
Whig  party  has  a  large  throat,  178  —  but  query 

as  to  swallowing  spurs,  201. 
White-house,  192. 

Wickliffe,  Robert,  consequences  of  his  burst- 
ing, 277. 
Wife-trees,  197. 


INDEX. 


309 


Wilbur,  Mrs.  Dorcas  (Pilcox),  an  invariable 
rule  of,  178  —  her  profile,  179— tribute  to, 
275. 

"Wilbur,  Rev.  Homer,  A.  M.,  consulted,  169  — 
his  instructions  to  his  flock,  171  —  a  proposi- 
tion of  his  for  Protestant  bomb-shells,  175  — 
his  elbow  nudged,  ib.  —  his  notions  of  satire, 
ib.  —  some  opinions  of  his  quoted  with  ap- 
parent approval  by  Mr.  Biglow,  176  — geo- 
graphical speculations  of,  177  — a  justice  of 
the  peace,  ib.  — a  letter  of,  ib.  —  a  Latin  pun 
of,  ib.  —  runs  against  a  post  without  injury, 
178  —  does  not  seek  notoriety  (whatever  some 
malignants  may  affirm),  ib.  —  fits  youths  for 
college,  ib.  —  a  chaplain  during  late  war  with 
England,  179  —  a  shrewd  observation  of,  ib. 
—some  curious  speculations  of,  181,  185  — 
his  martello-tower,  1S4  — forgets  he  is  not  in 
pulpit,  187,  193  — extracts  from  sermon  of, 
187,  189  —  interested  in  John  Smith,  190  — 
his  views  concerning  present  state  of  letters, 
190,  191  —  a  stratagem  of,  192  — ventures  two 
hundred  and  fourth  interpretation  of  Beast 
in  Apocalypse,  ib.  —  christens  Horn  B.  Sawm, 
then  an  infant,  193  — an  addition  to  our  sylva 
proposed  by,  197 — curious  and  instructive 
adventure  of,  198  — his  account  with  an  un- 
natural uncle,  ib.  — his  uncomfortable  imagi- 
nation, 199  —  speculations  concerning  Cin- 
cinnatus,  ib.  —  confesses  digressive  tendency 
of  mind,  204  —  goes  to  work  on  sermon  (not 
without  fear  that  his  readers  will  dub  him 
with  a  reproachful  epithet  like  that  with 
which  Isaac  Allerton,  a  Mayflower  man,  re- 
venges himself  on  a  delinquent  debtor  of  his, 
calling  him  in  his  will,  and  thus  holding  him 
up  to  posterity,  as  "John  Peterson,  The 
Bore"),  ib.  —his  modesty,  231  —  disclaims 
soU  authorship  of  Mr.  Biglow's  writings,  ib. 
—  his  low  opinion  of  prepensive  autographs, 
ib.  —  a  chaplain  in  1812,  232  —  cites  a  heathen 
comedian,  233  —  his  fondness  for  the  Book 


of  Job,  ib.  — preaches  a  Fast-Day  discourse, 
ib.  —  is  prevented  from  narrating  a  singular 
occurrence,  ib.  —  is  presented  with  a  pair  of 
new  spectacles,  238  —  his  church  services  in- 
decorously sketched  by  Mr.  Sawin,  253  — 
hopes  to  decipher  a  Runic  inscription,  257  — 
a  fable  by,  258  —  deciphers  Runic  inscription, 
263  -  265  —  his  method  therein,  264  —  is  ready 
to  reconsider  his  opinion  of  tobacco,  265  — 
his  opinion  of  the  Puritans,  270  —  his  death, 
275  —  born  in  Pigsgusset,  ib .  —  letter  of  Rev. 
Mr.  Hitchcock  concerning,  275,  276  —  fond 
of  Milton's  Christmas  hymn,  276  —  his  monu- 
ment (proposed),  ib.  —  his  epitaph,  ib.  —  his 
last  letter,  276,277  —  his  supposed  disem- 
bodied spirit,  279  —  table  belonging  to,  ib.  — 

—  sometimes  wrote  Latin  verses,  ib. — his 
table-talk,  283  -  285  —  his  prejudices,  283  — 
against  Baptists,  ib.  —  his  sweet  nature,  288 

—  his  views  of  style,  ib.  — a  story  of  his,  289. 
Wildbore,  a  vernacular  one,  how  to  escape,  181. 
Wilkes,  Captain,  borrows  rashly,  244. 

Wind,  the,  a  good  Samaritan,  193. 

Wingfield,  his  "  Memorial,"  251. 

Wooden  leg,  remarkable  for  sobriety,  194  — 

never  eats  pudding,  ib. 
Woods,  the.    See  Belmont. 
Works,  covenants  of,  condemned,  252. 
World,  this,  its  unhappy  temper,  233. 
Wright,  Colonel,  providentially  rescued,  173. 
Writing  dangerous  to  reputation,  232. 
Wrong,  abstract,  safe  to  oppose,  181. 


Y. 

Yankees,  their  worst  wooden  nutmegs,  263. 


Z. 

Zack,  Old,  200. 


THE  UNHAPPY  LOT  OF  MR.  KNOTT. 


1850. 


THE  UNHAPPY  LOT  OF  MR.  KNOTT. 


PART  I. 

SHOWING   HOW   HE   BUILT   HIS  HOUSE 
AND  HIS  WIFE  MOVED   INTO  IT. 

My  worthy  friend,  A.  Gordon  Knott, 

From  business  snug  withdrawn, 
Was  much  contented  with  a  lot 
That  would  contain  a  Tudor  cot 
'Twixt  twelve  feet  square  of  garden-plot, 
And  twelve  feet  more  of  lawn. 

He  had  laid  business  on  the  shelf 

To  give  his  taste  expansion, 
And,  since  no  man,  retired  with  pelf, 

The  building  mania  can  shun, 
Knott,  being  middle-aged  himself, 
Resolved  to  build  (unhappy  elf!) 

A  mediaeval  mansion. 

He  called  an  architect  in  counsel ; 
"I  want,"  said  he,  "a — you  know 
what, 

(You  are  a  builder,  I  am  Knott,) 
A  thing  complete  from  chimney-pot 
Down  to  the  very  grounsel ; 

Here 's  a  half-acre  of  good  land  ; 
Just  have  it  nicely  mapped  and 
planned 

And  make  your  workmen  drive  on  ; 
Meadow  there  is,  and  upland  too, 
And  I  should  like  a  water- view, 

D'  you  think  you  could  contrive  one  ? 
(Perhaps  the  pump  and  trough  would 
do, 

If  painted  a  judicious  blue  ?) 
The  woodland  1  've  attended  to  "  ; 
[He  meant  three   pines  stuck  up 
askew, 

Two  dead  ones  and  a  live  one.] 

"A  pocket-full  of  rocks  'twould  take 

To  build  a  house  of  freestone, 
But  then  it  is  not  hard  to  make 


"What  nowadays  is  the  stone  ; 
The  cunning  painter  in  a  trice 
Your  house's  outside  petrifies, 
And  people  think  it  very  gneiss 

Without  inquiring  deeper ; 

My  money  never  shall  be  thrown 
Away  on  such  a  deal  of  stone, 

When  stone  of  deal  is  cheaper." 

And  so  the  greenest  of  antiques 

Was  reared  for  Knott  to  dwell  in  : 
The  architect  worked  hard  for  weeks 
In  venting  all  his  private  peaks 
Upon  the  roof,  whose  crop  of  leaks 

Had  satisfied  Fluellen ; 
Whatever  anybody  had 
Out  of  the  common,  good  or  bad, 

Knott  had  it  all  worked  well  in ; 
A  donjon-keep,  where  clothes  might 
dry, 

A  porter's  lodge  that  was  a  sty, 
A  campanile  slim  and  high, 

Too  small  to  hang  a  bell  in  ; 
All  up  and  down  and  here  and  there, 
With  Lord-knows-whats  of  round  and 
square 

Stuck  on  at  random  everywhere,  — 
It  was  a  house  to  make  one  stare, 

All  corners  and  all  gables  ; 
Like  dogs  let  loose  upon  a  bear, 
Ten  emulous  styles  staboyed  with  care, 
The  whole  among  them  seemed  to  tear, 
And  all  the  oddities  to  spare 

Were  set  upon  the  stables. 

Knott  was  delighted  with  a  pile 
Approved  by  fashion's  leaders : 

(Only  he  made  the  builder  smile, 

By  asking  every  little  while, 

Why  that  was  called  the  Twodoor  style, 
Which  certainly  had  three  doors  ?) 

Yet  better  for  this  luckless  man 

If  he  had  put  a  downright  ban 


314 


THE  UNHAPPY  LOT  OF  MR.  KNOTT. 


Upon  the  thing  in  limine  ; 
For,  though  to  quit  affairs  his  plan, 
Ere  many  days,  poor  Knott  began 
Perforce  accepting  draughts,  that  ran 

All  ways  —  except  up  chimney  ; 
The  house,  though  painted  stone  to 
mock, 

With  nice  white  lines   round  every 
block, 

Some  trepidation  stood  in, 
When  tempests  (with  petrihc  shock, 
So  to  speak,)  made  it  really  rock, 

Though  not  a  whit  less  wooden  ; 
And  painted  stone,  howe'er  well  done, 
Will  not  take  in  the  prodigal  sun 
Whose  beams  are  never  quite  at  one 

With  our  terrestrial  lumber ; 
So  the  wood  shrank  around  the  knots, 
And  gaped  in  disconcerting  spots, 
And  there  were  lots  of  dots  and  rots 

And  crannies  without  number, 
Wherethrough,  as  you  may  well  pre- 
sume, 

The  wind,  like  water  through  a  flume, 

Came  rushing  in  ecstatic, 
Leaving,  in  all  three  floors,  no  room 

That  was  not  a  rheumatic  ; 
And,  what  with  points  and  squares  and 
rounds 

Grown  shaky  on  their  poises, 
The  house  at  nights  was  full  of  pounds, 
Thumps,  bumps,  creaks,  scratchings, 

raps  —  till  —  "  Zounds  ! " 
Cried  Knott,   "this  goes  beyond  all 

bounds ; 

I  do  not  deal  in  tongues  and  sounds, 
Nor  have  I  let  my  house  and  grounds 
To  a  family  of  Noyeses !  " 

But,  though  Knott's  house  was  full  of 
airs, 

He  had  but  one,  —  a  daughter ; 
And,  as  he  owned  much  stocks  and 
shares, 

Many  who  wished  to  render  theirs 

Such  vain,  unsatisfying  cares, 

And  needed  wives  to  sew  their  tears, 

In  matrimony  sought  her  ; 
They  vowed  her  gold  they  wanted  not, 

Their  faith  would  never  falter, 
They  longed  to  tie  this  single  Knott 

In  the  Hymeneal  halter  ; 
So  daily  at  the  door  they  rang, 

Cards  for  the  belle  delivering, 
Or  in  the  choir  at  her  they  sang, 
Achieving  such  a  rapturous  twang 

As  set  her  nerves  ashivering. 


Now  Knott  had  quite  made  up  his  mind 

That  Colonel  Jones  should  have  her  ; 
No  beauty  he,  but  oft  we  find 
Sweet  kernels  'neath  a  roughish  rind, 
So  hoped  his  Jenny  'd  be  resigned 

And  make  no  more  palaver  ; 
Glanced  at  the  fact  that  love  was  blind, 
That  girls  were  ratherish  inclined 

To  pet  their  little  crosses, 
Then  nosologically  denned 
The  rate  at  which  the  system  pined 
In  those  unfortunates  who  dined 
Upon  that  metaphoric  kind 

Of  dish  —  their  own  proboscis. 

But  she,  with  many  tears  and  moans, 

Besought  him  not  to  mock  her, 
Said 't  was  too  much  for  flesh  and  bones 
To  marry  mortgages  and  loans, 
That  fathers'  hearts  were  stocks  and 
stones, 

And  that  she 'd  go,  when  Mrs.  Jones, 

To  Davy  Jones's  locker  ; 
Then  gave  her  head  a  little  toss 
That  said  as  plain  as  ever  was, 
If  men  are  always  at  a  loss 

Mere  womankind  to  bridle  — 
To  try  the  thing  on  woman  cross 

Were  fifty  times  as  idle  ; 
For  she  a  strict  resolve  had  made 

And  registered  in  private, 
That  either  she  would  die  a  maid, 
Or  else  be  Mrs.  Doctor  Slade, 

If  woman  could  contrive  it ; 
And,  though  the  wedding-day  was  set, 

Jenny  was  more  so,  rather, 
Declaring,  in  a  pretty  pet, 
That,  howsoe'er  they  spread  their  net, 
She  would  out-Jennyral  them  yet, 

The  colonel  and  her  father. 

Just  at  this  time  the  Public's  eyes 

Were  keenly  on  the  watch,  a  stir 
Beginning  slowly  to  arise 
About  those  questions  and  replies, 
Those  raps  that  unwrapped  mysteries 

So  rapidly  at  Rochester, 
And  Knott,  already  nervous  grown 
By  lying  much  awake  alone, 
And  listening,  sometimes  to  a  moan, 

And  sometimes  to  a  clatter, 
Whene'er  the  wind  at  night  would  rouse 
The  gingerbread-work  on  his  house, 
Or  when  some  hasty-tempered  mouse, 
Behind  the  plastering,  made  a  towse 

About  a  family  matter, 
Began  to  wonder  if  his  wife, 


THE  UNHAPPY  LOT  OF  MR.  KNOTT. 


315 


A  paralytic  half  her  life, 

Which  made  it  more  surprising, 
Might  not  to  rule  him  from  her  urn, 
Have  taken  a  peripatetic  turn 

For  want  of  exorcising. 

This  thought,  once  nestled  in  his  head, 
Erelong  contagious  grew,  and  spread 
Infecting  all  his  mind  with  dread, 
Until  at  last  he  lay  in  bed 
And  heard  his  wife,  with  well-known 
tread, 

Entering  the  kitchen  through  the  shed, 

(Or  was 't  his  fancy,  mocking  ?) 
Opening  the  pantry,  cutting  bread, 
And  then  (she  'd  been  some  ten  years 
dead) 

Closets  and  drawers  unlocking ; 
Or,  in  his  room  (his  breath  grew  thick) 
He  heard  the  long-familiar  click 
Of  slender  needles  flying  quick, 

As  if  she  knit  a  stocking ; 
For  whom  ? — he  prayed  that  years  might 
flit 

With  pains  rheumatic  shooting, 
Before  those  ghostly  things  she  knit 
Upon  his  unfleshed  sole  might  fit, 
He  did  not  fancy  it  a  bit, 

To  stand  upon  that  footing ; 
At  other  times,  his  frightened  hairs 

Above  the  bedclothes  trusting, 
He  heard  her,  full  of  household  cares, 
(No  dream  entrapped  in  supper's  snares, 
The  foal  of  horrible  nightmares, 
But  broad  awake,  as  he  declares,) 
Go  bustling  up  and  down  the  stairs, 
Or  setting  back  last  evening's  chairs, 

Or  with  the  poker  thrusting 
The     raked- up  sea -coal's  hardened 
crust  — 

And  —  what !  impossible  !  it  must ! 
He  knew  she  had  returned  to  dust, 
And  yet  could  scarce  his  senses  trust, 
Hearing  her  as  she  poked  and  fussed 
About  the  parlor,  dusting ! 

Night  after  night  he  strove  to  sleep 
And  take  his  ease  in  spite  of  it ; 
But  still  his  flesh  would  chill  and  creep, 
And,  though  twTo  night-lamps  he  might 
keep, 

He  could  not  so  make  light  of  it. 
At  last,  quite  desperate,  he  goes 
And  tells  his  neighbors  all  his  woes, 

Which  did  but  their  amount  enhance ; 
They  made  such  mockery  of  his  fears 
That  soon  his  days  were  of  all  jeers, 


His  nights  of  the  rueful  countenance  ; 
"  1  thought  most  folks,"  one  neighbor 
said, 

"Gave  up  the  ghost  when  they  were 
dead  ? " 

Another  gravely  shook  his  head, 

Adding,  "  From  all  we  hear,  it 's 
Quite  plain  poor  Knott  is  going  mad  — 
For  how  can  he  at  once  be  sad 

And  think  he 's  full  of  spirits  ? " 
A  third  declared  he  knew  a  knife 

Would  cut  this  Knott  much  quicker, 
"The  surest  way  to  end  all  strife, 
And  lay  the  spirit  of  a  wife, 

Is  just  to  take  and  lick  her  !  " 
A  temperance  man  caught  up  the  word, 
"Ah,  yes,"  he  groaned,  "I 've  always 
heard 

Our  poor  friend  somewhat  slanted 
Tow'rd  taking  liquor  overmuch  ; 
I  fear  these  spirits  may  be  Dutch, 
(A  sort  of  gins,  or  something  such,) 

With  which  his  house  is  haunted  ; 
I  see  the  thing  as  clear  as  light,  — 
If  Knott  would  give  up  getting  tight, 

Naught  farther  would  be  wanted  "  : 
So  all  his  neighbors  stood  aloof 
And,  that  the  spirits  'neath  his  roof 
Were  not  entirely  up  to  proof, 

Unanimously  granted. 

Knott  knew  that  cocks  and  sprites  were 
foes, 

And  so  bought  up,  Heaven  only  knows 
How  many,  though  he  wanted  crows 
To  give  ghosts  caws,  as  I  suppose, 

To  think  that  day  was  breaking  ; 
Moreover  what  he  called  his  park, 
He  turned  into  a  kind  of  ark 
For  dogs,  because  a  little  bark 
Is  a  good  tonic  in  the  dark, 

If  one  is  given  to  waking  ; 
But  things  went  on  from  bad  to  worse, 
His  curs  were  nothing  but  a  cur*, 

And,  what  was  still  more  shocking, 
Foul  ghosts  of  living  fowl  made  scoff 
And  would  not  think  of  going  off 

In  spite  of  all  his  cocking. 
Shanghais,  Bucks- counties,  Dominiques, 
Malays  (that  did  n't  lay  for  weeks,) 

Polanders,  Bantams,  Dorkings, 
(Waiving  the  cost,  no  trifling  ill, 
Since  each  brought  in  his  little  bill,) 
By  day  or  night  were  never  still, 
But  every  thought  of  rest  would  kill 

With  cacklings  and  with  quorkings  ; 
Henry  the  Eighth  of  wives  got  free 


316 


THE  UNHAPPY  LOT  OF  MR.  KNOTT. 


By  a  way  he  had  of  axing  ; 
But  poor  Knott's  Tudor  henery 
Was  not  so  fortunate,  and  he 

Still  found  his  trouble  waxing  ; 
As  for  the  dogs,  the  rows  they  made, 
And  how  they  howled,  snarled,  barked 
and  bayed, 

Beyond  all  human  knowledge  is  ; 
All  night,  as  wide  awake  as  gnats, 
The  terriers  rumpused  after  rats, 
Or,  just  for  practice,  taught  their  brats 
To  worry  cast-off  shoes  and  hats, 
The  bull-dogs  settled  private  spats, 
All  chased  imaginary  cats, 
Or  raved  behind  the  fence's  slats 
At  real  ones,  or,  from  their  mats, 
With  friends,  miles  off,  held  pleasant 
chats, 

Or,  like  some  folks  in  white  cravats, 
Contemptuous  of  sharps  and  flats, 

Sat  up  and  sang  dogsologies. 
Meanwhile  the  cats  set  up  a  squall, 
And,  safe  upon  the  garden -wall, 

All  night  kept  cat-a- walling, 
As  if  the  feline  race  were  all, 
In  one  wild  cataleptic  sprawl, 

Into  love's  tortures  falling. 

PART  II. 

SHOWING  WHAT  IS  MEANT  BY  A  FLOW 
OF  SPIRITS. 

At  first  the  ghosts  were  somewhat 
shy, 

Coming  when  none  but  Knott  was  nigh, 
And  people  said 't  was  all  their  eye, 
(Or  rather  his)  a  flam,  the  sly 

Digestion's  machination  : 
Some  recommended  a  wet  sheet, 
Some  a  nice  broth  of  pounded  peat, 
Some  a  cold  flat-iron  to  the  feet, 
Some  a  decoction  of  lamb's-bleat, 
Some  a  southwesterly  grain  of  wheat ; 
Meat  was  by  some  pronounced  unmeet, 
Others  thought  iish  most  indiscreet, 
And  that  't  was  worse  than  all  to  eat 
Of  vegetables,  sour  or  sweet, 
(Except,  perhaps,  the  skin  of  beet,) 

In  such  a  concatenation  : 
One  quack  his  button  gently  plucks 
And  murmurs,  "  Biliary  ducks  !  " 

Says  Knott,  "  I  never  ate  one  "  ; 
But  all,  though  brimming  full  of  wrath, 
Homceo,  Alio,  Hydropath, 
Concurred  in  this  —  that  t'  other's  path 

To  death's  door  was  the  straight  one. 


Still,  spite  of  medical  advice, 

The  ghosts  came  thicker,  and  a  spice 

Of  mischief  grew  apparent  ; 
Nor  did  they  only  come  at  night, 
But  seemed  to  fancy  broad  daylight, 
Till  Knott,  in  horror  and  affright, 

His  unoffending  hair  rent ; 
Whene'er  with  handkerchief  on  lap, 
He  made  his  elbow-chair  a  trap, 
To  catch  an  after-dinner  nap, 
The  spirits,  always  on  the  tap, 
Would  make  a  sudden  rap,  rap,  rap, 
The  half-spun  cord  of  sleep  to  snap, 
(And  what  is  life  without  its  nap 
But  threadbareness  and  mere  mishap  ?) 
As  't  were  with  a  percussion  cap 

The  trouble's  climax  capping  ; 
It  seemed  a  party  dried  and  grim 
Of  mummies  had  come  to  visit  him, 
Each  getting  off  from  every  limb 

Its  multitudinous  wrapping  ; 
Scratchings  sometimes  the  walls  ran 
round, 

The  merest  penny- weights  of  sound  ; 
Sometimes 't  was  only  by  the  pound 

They  carried  on  their  dealing, 
A  thumping  'neath  the  parlor  floor, 
Thump -bump-thump-bumping  o'er  and 
o'er, 

As  if  the  vegetables  in  store 
(Quiet  and  orderly  before) 

Were  all  together  peeling  ; 
You  would  have  thought  the  thing  was 
done 

By  the  spirit  of  some  son  of  a  gun, 

And  that  a  forty-two- pounder, 
Or  that  the  ghost  which  made  such 
sounds 

Could  be  none  other  than  John  Pounds, 

Of  Ragged  Schools  the  founder. 
Through  three  gradations  of  affright, 
The  awful  noises  reached  their  height ; 

At  first  they  knocked  nocturnally, 
Then,  for  some  reason,  changing  quite, 
(As  mourners,  after  six  months'  flight, 
Turn  suddenly  from  dark  to  light,) 

Began  to  knock  diurnally, 
And  last,  combining  all  their  stocks, 

(Scotland  was  ne'er  so  full  of  Knox,) 
Into  one  Chaos  (father  of  Nox,) 
Node  pluit  —  they  showered  knocks, 

And    knocked,    knocked,  knocked, 
eternally  ; 
Ever  upon  the  go,  like  buoys, 
(Wooden  sea-urchins,)  all  Knott's  joys, 
They  turned  to  troubles  and  a  noise 

That  preyed  on  him  internally. 


THE  UNHAPPY  LOT  OF  MR.  KNOTT. 


317 


Soon  they  grew  wider  in  their  scope  ; 
Whenever  Knott  a  door  would  ope, 
It  would  ope  not,  or  else  elope 
And  fly  back  (curbless  as  a  trope 
Once  started  down  a  stanza's  slope 
By  a  bard  that  gave  it  too  much  rope  —  ) 

Like  a  clap  of  thunder  slamming  ; 
And,  when  kind  Jenny  brought  his  hat, 
(She  always,  when  he  walked,  did  that,) 
Just  as  upon  his  head  it  sat, 
Submitting  to  his  settling  pat, 
Some  unseen  hand  would  jam  it  flat, 
Or  give  it  such  a  furious  bat 

That  eyes  and  nose  went  cramming 
Up  out  of  sight,  and  consequently, 
As  when  in  life  it  paddled  free, 

His  beaver  caused  much  damning  ; 
If  these  things  seem  o'er-strained  to 
be, 

Read  the  account  of  Doctor  Dee^ 
'T  is  in  our  college  library  ; 
Read  Wesley's  circumstantial  plea, 
And  Mrs.  Crowe,  more  like  a  bee, 
Sucking  the  nightshade's  honeyed  fee, 
And  Stilling's  Pneumatology  ; 
Consult  Scot,  Glanvil,  grave  Wie- 
rus,  and  both  Mathers  ;  further  see, 
Webster,  Casaubon,  James  First's  trea- 
tise, a  right  royal  Q.  E.  D. 
Writ  with  the  moon  in  perigee, 
Bodin  de  la  Demon omanie  — 
(Accent  that  last  line  gingerly) 
All  full  of  learning  as  the  sea 
Of  fishes,  and  all  disagree, 
Save  in  Sathanas  apage  I 
Or,  what  will  surely  put  a  flea 
In  unbelieving  ears — with  glee, 
Out  of  a  paper  (sent  to  me 
By  some  friend  who  forgot  to  P... 
A. . .  Y. . .  —  I  use  cryptography 
Lest  I  his  vengeful  pen  should  dree  — 
His  P...O...S...T...A...G...E...) 

Things  to  the  same  effect  I  cut, 
About  the  tantrums  of  a  ghost, 
Not  more  than  three  weeks  since,  at 
most, 

Near  Stratford,  in  Connecticut. 

Knott's  Upas  daily  spread  its  roots, 
Sent  up  on  all  sides  livelier  shoots, 
And  bore  more  pestilential  fruits  ; 
The  ghosts  behaved    like  downright 
brutes, 

They  snipped  holes  in  his  Sunday  suits, 
Practised  all  night  on  octave  flutes, 
Put  peas  (not  peace)  into  his  boots, 
Whereof  grew  corns  in  season, 


They  scotched  his  sheets,  and,  what  was 
worse, 

Stuck  his  silk  nightcap  full  of  burs, 
Till  he,  in  language  plain  and  terse, 
(But  much  unlike  a  Bible  verse,) 
Swore  he  should  lose  his  reason. 

The  tables  took  to  spinning,  too, 
Perpetual  yarns,  and  arm-chairs  grew 

To  prophets  and  apostles  ; 
One  footstool  vowed  that  only  he 
Of  law  and  gospel  held  the  key, 
That  teachers  of  whate'er  degree 
To  whom  opinion  bows  the  knee 
Wern't  fit  to  teach  Truth's  a  b  c. 
And  were  (the  whole  lot)  to  a  T 

Mere  fogies  all  and  fossils  ; 
A  teapoy,  late  the  property 

Of  Knox's  Aunt  Keziah, 
(Whom  Jenny  most  irreverently 
Had  nicknamed  her  aunt-tipathy) 
With  tips  emphatic  claimed  to  be 

The  prophet  Jeremiah  ; 
The  tins  upon  the  kitchen-wall, 
Turned  tintinnabulators  all, 
And  things  that  used  to  come  at  call 

For  simple  household  services 
Began  to  hop  and  whirl  and  prance, 
Fit  to  put  out  of  countenance 
The  Commis  and  Grisettes  of  France 

Or  Turkey's  dancing  Dervises. 

Of  course  such  doings,  far  and  wide, 
With  rumors  filled  the  country-side, 
And  (as  it  is  our  nation's  pride 
To  think  a  Truth  not  verified 
Till  with  majorities  allied) 
Parties  sprung  up,  affirmed,  denied, 
And  candidates  with  questions  plied, 
Who,  like  the  circus-riders,  tried 
At  once  both  hobbies  to  bestride, 
And  each  with  his  opponent  vied 

In  being  inexplicit. 
Earnest  inquirers  multiplied  ; 
Folks,  whose  tenth  cousins  lately  died, 
Wrote  letters  long,  and  Knott  replied ; 
All  who  could  either  walk  or  ride 
Gathered  to  wonder  or  deride, 

And  paid  the  house  a  visit ; 
Horses  were  to  his  pine-trees  tied, 
Mourners  in  every  corner  sighed, 
Widows   brought  children  there  that 
cried, 

Swarms  of  lean  Seekers,  eager-eyed, 
(People  Knott  never  could  abide,) 
Into  each  hole  and  cranny  pried 
With  strings  of  questions  cut  and  dried 


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THE  UNHAPPY  LOT  OF  MR.  KNOTT. 


From  the  Devout  Inquirer's  Guide, 
For  the  wise  spirits  to  decide  — 

As,  for  example,  is  it 
True  that  the  damned  are  fried  or  boiled  ? 
Was  the  Earth's  axis  greased  or  oiled  ? 
"Who  cleaned  the  moon  when  it  was 
soiled  ? 

How  baldness  might  be  cured  or  foiled  ? 

How  heal  diseased  potatoes  ? 
Did  spirits  have  the  sense  of  smell  ? 
Where  would  departed  spinsters  dwell  ? 
If  the  late  Zenas  Smith  were  well  ? 
If  Earth  were  solid  or  a  shell  ? 
Were  spirits  fond  of  Doctor  Fell  ? 
Did  the  bull  toll  Cock-Robin's  knell  ? 
What  remedy  would  bugs  expel  ? 
If  Paine's  invention  were  a  sell  ? 
Did  spirits  by  Webster's  system  spell  ? 
Was  it  a  sin  to  be  a  belle  ? 
Did  dancing  sentence  folks  to  hell  ? 
If  so,  then  where  most  torture  fell  — 

On  little  toes  or  great  toes  ? 
If  life's  true  seat  were  in  the  brain  ? 
Did  Ensign  mean  to  marry  Jane  ? 
By  whom,  in  fact,  was  Morgan  slain  ? 
Could  matter  ever  suffer  pain  ? 
What  would  take  out  a  cherry-stain  ? 
Who  picked  the  pocket  of  Seth  Crane, 
Of  Waldo  precinct,  State  of  Maine  ? 
Was  Sir  John  Franklin  sought  in  vain  ? 
Did  primitive  Christians  ever  train  ? 
What  was  the  family-name  of  Cain  ? 
Them  spoons,  were  they  by  Betty  ta'en  ? 
Would  earth-worm    poultice    cure  a 
sprain  ? 

Was  Socrates  so  dreadful  plain  ? 
What  teamster  guided  Charles's  wain  ? 
Was  Uncle  Ethan  mad  or  sane, 
And  could  his  will  in  force  remain  ? 
If  not,  what  counsel  to  retain  ? 
Did  Le  Sage  steal  Gil  Bias  from  Spain  ? 
Was  Junius  writ  by  Thomas  Paine  ? 
Were  ducks  discomforted  by  rain  ? 
How  did  Britannia  rule  the  main  ? 
Was  Jonas  coming  back  again  ? 
Was  vital  truth  upon  the  wane  ? 
Did  ghosts,  to  scare  folks,  drag  a  chain  ? 
Who  was  our  Huldah's  chosen  swain  ? 
Did  none  have  teeth  pulled  without 
payin', 
Ere  ether  was  invented  ? 
Whether  mankind  would  not  agree, 
If  the  universe  were  tuned  in  C  ? 
What  was  it  ailed  Lucindy's  knee  ? 
Whether  folks  eat  folks  in  Feejee  ? 
Whether  his  name  would  end  with  T  ? 
If  Saturn's  rings  were  two  or  three, 


And  what  bump  in  Phrenology 

They  truly  represented  ? 
These  problems  dark,   wherein  they 
groped, 

Wherewith  man's  reason  vainly  coped, 
Now  that  the  spirit-world  was  oped, 
In  all  humility  they  hoped 

Would  be  resolved  instanter  ; 
Each  of  the  miscellaneous  rout 
Brought  his,  or  her,  own  little  doubt, 
And  wished  to  pump  the  spirits  out, 
Through  his  or  her  own  private  spout, 

Into  his  or  her  decanter. 


PART  HI. 

WHEREIN  IT  IS  SHOWN  THAT  THE 
MOST  ARDENT  SPIRITS  ARE  MORE 
ORNAMENTAL  THAN  USEFUL. 

Many  a  speculating  wight 
Came  by  express-trains,  day  and  night, 
To  see  if  Knott  would  "  sell  his  right," 
Meaning  to  make  the  ghosts  a  sight  — 

What  they  called  a  "meenaygerie  "  ; 
One  threatened,  if  he  would  not "  trade," 
His  run  of  custom  to  invade, 
(He  could  not  these  sharp  folks  persuade 
That  he  was  not,  in  some  way,  paid,) 

And  stamp  him  as  a  plagiary, 
By  coming  down,  at  one  fell  swoop, 
With    the    ORIGINAL  knocking 

TROUPE, 

Come  recently  from  Hades, 
Who  (for  a  quarter-dollar  heard) 
Would  ne'er  rap  out  a  hasty  word 
Whence  any  blame  might  be  incurred 

From  the  most  fastidious  ladies  ; 
The  late  lamented  Jesse  Soule 
To  stir  the  ghosts  up  with  a  pole 
And  be  director  of  the  whole, 

Who  was  engaged  the  rather 
For  the  rare  merits  he  'd  combine, 
Having  been  in  the  spirit  line, 
Which  trade  he  only  did  resign, 
With  general  applause,  to  shine, 
Awful  in  mail  of  cotton  fine, 

As  ghost  of  Hamlet's  father  ! 
Another  a  fair  plan  reveals 
Never  yet  hit  on,  which,  he  feels, 
To  Knott's  religious  sense  appeals  — 
"We'll  have  your  house  set  up  on 
wheels, 

A  speculation  pious ; 
For  music,  we  can  shortly  find 
A  barrel-organ  that  will  grind 
Psalm-tunes,  —  an  instrument  designed 


THE  UNHAPPY  LOT  OF  MR.  KNOTT. 


319 


For  the  New  England  tour  —  refined 
From  secular  drosses,  and  inclined 
To  an  unworldly  turn,  (combined 

"With  no  sectarian  bias ;) 
Then,  travelling  by  stages  slow, 
Under  the  style  of  Knott  &  Co., 
I  would  accompany  the  show 
As  moral  lecturer,  the  foe 
Of  Rationalism  ;  while  you  could  throw 
The  rappings  in,  and  make  them  go 
Strict  Puritan  principles,  you  know, 
(HowT  do  you  make  'em  ?  with  your  toe  ?) 
And  the  receipts  which  thence  might  flow, 

We  could  divide  between  us  ; 
Still  more  attractions  to  combine, 
Beside  these  services  of  mine, 
1  will  throw  in  a  very  fine 
(It  would  do  nicely  for  a  sign) 

Original  Titian's  Venus." 
Another  offered  handsome  fees 
/  If  Knott  would  get  Demosthenes 
/   (Nay,  his  mere  knuckles,  for  more  ease) 
To  rap  a  few  short  sentences  ; 
Or  if,  for  want  of  proper  keys, 

His  Greek  might  make  confusion, 
Then  just  to  get  a  rap  from  Burke, 
To  recommend  a  little  work 

On  Public  Elocution. 
Meanwhile,  the  spirits  made  replies 
To  all  the  reverent  whats  and  whys, 
Resolving  doubts  of  every  size, 
And  giving  seekers  grave  and  wise, 
Who  came  to  know  their  destinies, 

A  rap-turous  reception  ; 
When  unbelievers  void  of  grace 
Came  to  investigate  the  place, 
(Creatures  of  Sadducistic  race, 
With  grovelling  intellects  and  base,) 
They  could  not  find  the  slightest  trace 

To  indicate  deception  ; 
Indeed,  it  is  declared  by  some 
That  spirits  (of  this  sort)  are  glum, 
Almost,  or  wholly,  deaf  and  dumb, 
And  (out  of  self-respect)  quite  mum 
To  sceptic  natures  cold  and  numb, 
Who  of  this  kind  of  Kingdom  Come 

Have  not  a  just  conception  : 
True,  there  were  people  who  demurred 
That,  though  the  raps  no  doubt  were  heard 

Both  under  them  and  o'er  them, 
Yet,  somehow,  when  a  search  they  made, 
They  found  Miss  Jenny  sore  afraid, 
Or  Jenny's  lover,  Doctor  Slade, 
Equally  awe-struck  and  dismayed, 
Or  Deborah,  the  chamber-maid, 
Whose  terrors  not  to  be  gainsaid, 
In  laughs  hysteric  were  displayed, 


Was  always  there  before  them ; 
This  had  its  due  effect  with  some 
Who  straight  departed,  muttering,  Hum ! 

Transparent  hoax  !  and  Gammon  ! 
But  these  were  few  :  believing  souls 
Came,  day  by  day,  in  larger  shoals, 
As  the  ancients  to  the  windy  holes 
'Neath  Delphi's  tripod  brought  their 
doles, 

Or  to  the  shrine  of  Amnion. 

The  spirits  seemed  exceeding  tame, 
Call  whom  you  fancied,  and  he  came ; 
The  shades  august  of  eldest  fame 

You  summoned  with  an  awful  ease  ; 
As  grosser  spirits  gurgled  out 
From  chair  and  table  with  a  spout, 
In  Auerbach's  cellar  once,  to  flout 
The  senses  of  the  rabble  rout, 
Where'er  the  gimlet  twirled  about 

Of  cunning  Mephistopheles, 
So  did  these  spirits  seem  in  store, 
Behind  the  wainscot  or  the  door, 
Ready  to  thrill  the  being's  core 
Of  every  enterprising  bore 

With  their  astounding  glamour  ; 
Whatever  ghost  one  wished  to  hear, 
By  strange  coincidence,  was  near 
To  make  the  past  or  future  clear 

(Sometimes  in  shocking  grammar) 
By  raps  and  taps,  now  there,  now  here  — 
It  seemed  as  if  the  spirit  queer 
Of  some  departed  auctioneer 
Were  doomed  to  practise  by  the  year 

With  the  spirit  of  his  hammer  : 
Whate'er  you  asked  was  answered,  yet 
One  could  not  very  deeply  get 
Into  the  obliging  spirits'  debt, 
Because  they  used  the  alphabet 

In  all  communications, 
And  new  revealings  (though  sublime) 
Rapped  out,  one  letter  at  a  time, 

With  boggles,  hesitations, 
Stoppings,  beginnings  o'er  again, 
And  getting  matters  into  train, 
Could  hardly  overload  the  brain 

With  too  excessive  rations, 
Since  just  to  ask  if  two  and  two 
Really  make  four  ?  or,  How  d'  ye  do  ? 
And  get  the  fit  replies  thereto 
In  the  tramundane  rat- tat-too, 

Might  ask  a  whole  day's  patience. 

'T  was  strange  ('inongst  other  things)  to 
find 

In  what  odd  sets  the  ghosts  combined, 
Happy  forthwith  to  thump  any 


320 


THE  UNHAPPY  LOT  OF  MR.  KNOTT. 


v  Piece  of  intelligence  inspired, 

The  truth  whereof  had  been  inquired 

By  some  one  of  the  company ; 
For  instance,  Fielding,  Mirabeau, 
Orator  Henley,  Cicero, 
Paley,  John  Zisca,  Marivaux, 
Melancthon,  Robertson,  Junot, 
Scaliger,  Chesterfield,  Rousseau, 
Hakluyt,  Boccaccio,  South,  De  Foe, 
Diaz,  Josephus,  Richard  Roe, 
Odin,  Arminius,  Charles  le  gros, 
Tiresias,  the  late  James  Crow, 
Casabianca,  Grose,  Prideaux, 
Old  Grimes,  Young  Norval,  Swift,  Bris- 
sot, 

Maimonides,  the  Chevalier  D'O, 
Socrates,  Fenelon,  Job,  Stow, 
The  inventor  of  Elixir  pro, 
Euripides,  Spinoza,  Poe, 
Confucius,  Hiram  Smith,  and  Fo, 
Came  (as  it  seemed,  somewhat  de  trop) 
With  a  disembodied  Esquimaux, 
To  say  that  it  was  so  and  so, 

With  Franklin's  expedition  ; 
One  testified  to  ice  and  snow, 
One  that  the  mercury  was  low, 
One  that  his  progress  was  quite  slow, 
One  that  he  much  desired  to  go, 
One  that  the  cook  had  frozen  his  toe, 
(Dissented  from  by  Dandolo, 
Wordsworth,  Cynaegirus,  Boileau, 
La  Hontan,  and  Sir  Thomas  Roe,) 
One  saw  twelve  white  bears  in  a  row, 
One  saw  eleven  and  a  crow, 
With  other  things  we  could  not  know 
(Of  great  statistic  value,  though,) 

By  our  mere  mortal  vision. 

Sometimes  the  spirits  made  mistakes, 
And  seemed  to  play  at  ducks  and  drakes 
With  bold  inquiry's  heaviest  stakes 

In  science  or  in  mystery ; 
They  knew  so  little  (and  that  wrong) 
Yet  rapped  it  out  so  bold  and  strong, 
One  would  have  said  the  unnumbered 
throng 

Had  been  Professors  of  History  ; 
What  made  it  odder  was,  that  those 
Who,  you  would  naturally  suppose, 
Could  solve  a  question,  if  they  chose, 
As  easily  as  count  their  toes, 

Were  just  the  ones  that  blundered  ; 
One  day,  Ulysses  happening  down, 
A  reader  of  Sir  Thomas  Browne 

And  who  (with  him)  had  wondered 
What  song  it  was  the  Sirens  sang, 
Asked  the  shrewd  Ithacan  — bang!  bang! 


With  this  response  the  chamber  rang, 

"  I  guess  it  was  Old  Hundred." 
And  Franklin,  being  asked  to  name 
The  reason  why  the  lightning  came, 
Replied,  "  Because  it  thundered." 

On  one  sole  point  the  ghosts  agreed, 
One  fearful  point,  than  which,  indeed, 

Nothing  could  seem  absurder  ; 
Poor  Colonel  Jones  they  all  abused, 
And  finally  downright  accused 

The  poor  old  man  of  murder  ; 
'T  was  thus  ;  by  dreadful  raps  was  shown 
Some  spirit's  longing  to  make  known 
A  bloody  fact,  which  he  alone 
Was  privy  to,  (such  ghosts  more  prone 

In  Earth's  affairs  to  meddle  are  ;) 
Who  are  you  ?  with  awe-stricken  looks, 
All  ask  :  his  airy  knuckles  he  crooks, 
And  raps,  "  I  was  Eliab  Snooks, 

That  used  to  be  a  pedler  ; 
Some  on  ye  still  are  on  my  books  ! " 
Whereat,  to  inconspicuous  Jiooks, 
(More  fearing  this  than  common  spooks,) 

Shrank  each  indebted  meddler  ; 
Further  the  vengeful  ghost  declared 
That  while  his  earthly  life  was  spared, 
About  the  country  he  had  fared, 

A  duly  licensed  follower 
Of  that  much-wandering  trade  that  wins 
Slow  profit  from  the  sale  of  tins  . 

And  various  kinds  of  hollow-ware  ; 
That  Colonel  Jones  enticed  him  in, 
Pretending  that  he  wanted  tin, 
There  slew  him  with  a  rolling-pin, 
Hid  him  in  a  potato-bin, 

And  (the  same  night)  him  ferried 
Across  Great  Pond  to  t'  other  shore, 
And  there,  on  land  of  Widow  Moore, 
Just  where  you  turn  to  Larkin's  store, 

Under  a  rock  him  buried  ; 
Some  friends  (who  happened  to  be  by) 
He  called  upon  to  testify 
That  what  he  said  was  not  a  lie, 

And  that  he  did  not  stir  this 
Foul  matter,  out  of  any  spite 
But  from  a  simple  love  of  right  ;  — 

Which  statements  the  Nine  Worthies, 
Rabbi  Akiba,  Charlemagne, 
Seth,  Colley  Cibber,  General  Wayne, 
Cambyses,  Tasso,  Tubal-Cain, 
The  owner  of  a  castle  in  Spain, 
Jehanghire,  and  the  Widow  of  Nain, 
(The  friends  aforesaid,)  made  more  plain 

And  by  loud  raps  attested  ; 
To  the  same  purport  testified 
Plato,  John  Wilkes,  and  Colonel  Pride 


THE  UNHAPPY  LOT  OF  MR.  KNOTT. 


321 


"Who  knew  said  Snooks  before  he  died, 

Had  in  his  wares  invested, 
Thought  him  entitled  to  belief 
And  freely  could  concur,  in  brief, 

In  everything  the  rest  did. 

Eliab  this  occasion  seized, 
(Distinctly  here  the  spirit  sneezed,) 
To  say  that  he  should  ne'er  be  eased 
Till  Jenny  married  whom  she  pleased, 

Free  from  all  checks  and  urgin's, 
(This  spirit  dropt  his  final  g's) 
And  that,  unless  Knott  quickly  sees 
This  done,  the  spirits  to  appease, 
They  would  come  back  his  life  to  tease, 
As  thick  as  mites  in  ancient  cheese, 
And  let  his  house  on  an  endless  lease 
To  the  ghosts  (terrific  rappers  these 
And  veritable  Eumenides) 

Of  the  Eleven  Thousand  Virgins ! 

Knott  was  perplexed  and  shook  his  head, 
He  did  not  wish  his  child  to  wed 

With  a  suspected  murderer, 
(For,  true  or  false,  the  rumor  spread,) 
But  as  for  this  roiled  life  he  led, 
"It  would  not  answer,"  so  he  said, 

"  To  have  it  go  no  furderer." 
At  last,  scarce  knowing  what  it  meant, 
Reluctantly  he  gave  consent 
That  Jenny,  since 't  was  evident 
That  she  would  follow  her  own  bent, 

Should  make  her  own  election ; 
For  that  appeared  the  only  way 
These  frightful  noises  to  allay 
Which  had  already  turned  him  gray 

And  plunged  him  in  dejection. 

Accordingly,  this  artless  maid 
Her  father's  ordinance  obeyed, 
And,  all  in  whitest  crape  arrayed, 
(Miss  Pulsifer  the  dresses  made 
And  wishes  here  the  fact  displayed 
That  she  still  carries  on  the  trade, 
The  third  door  south  from  Bagg's  Arcade,) 
A  very  faint  "I  do  "  essayed 
And  gave  her  hand  to  Hiram  Slade, 
From  which  time  forth,  the  ghosts  were 
laid, 

And  ne'er  gave  trouble  after ; 
But  the  Selectmen,  be  it  known, 
Dug  underneath  the  aforesaid  stone, 
Where  the  poor  pedler's  corpse  was 
thrown, 

And  found  thereunder  a  jaw-bone, 
Though,  when  the  crown er  sat  thereon, 
He  nothing  hatched,  except  alone 


Successive  broods  of  laughter ; 
It  was  a  frail  and  dingy  thing, 
In  which  a  grinder  or  two  did  cling, 

In  color  like  molasses, 
Which  surgeons,  called  from  far  and  wide, 
Upon  the  horror  to  decide, 

Having  put  on  their  glasses, 
Reported  thus —  "  To  judge  by  looks, 
These  bones,  by  some  queer  hooks  or 
crooks, 

May  have  belonged  to  Mr.  Snooks, 
But,  as  men  deepest-read  in  books 

Are  perfectly  aware,  bones, 
If  buried  fifty  years  or  so, 
Lose  their  identity  and  grow 

From  human  bones  to  bare  bones." 

Still,  if  to  Jaalam  you  go  down, 
You  '11  find  two  parties  in  the  town, 
One  headed  by  Benaiah  Brown, 

And  one  by  Perez  Tinkham  ; 
The  first  believe  the  ghosts  all  through 
And  vow  that  they  shall  never  rue 
The  happy  chance  by  which  they  knew 
That  people  in  Jupiter  are  blue, 
And  very  fond  of  Irish  stew, 
Two  curious  facts  which  Prince  Lee  Boo 
Rapped  clearly  to  a  chosen  few — 

Whereas  the  others  think  'em 
A  trick  got  up  by  Doctor  Slade 
With  Deborah  the  chamber-maid 

And  that  sly  cretur  Jinny. 
That  all  the  revelations  wise, 
At  which  the  Brownites  made  big  eyes, 
Might  have  been  given  by  Jared  Keyes, 

A  natural  fool  and  ninny, 
And,  last  week,  did  n't  Eliab  Snooks 
Come  back  with  never  better  looks, 
As  sharp  as  new-bought  mackerel  hooks, 

And  bright  as  a  new  pin,  eh  ? 
Good  Parson  Wilbur,  too,  avers 
(Though  to  be  mixed  in  parish  stirs 
Is  worse  than  handling  chestnut-burs) 
That  no  case  to  his  mind  occurs 
Where  spirits  ever  did  converse, 
Save  in  a  kind  of  guttural  Erse, 

(So  say  the  best  authorities  ;) 
And  that  a  charge  by  raps  conveyed 
Should  be  most  scrupulously  weighed 

And  searched  into,  before  it  is 
Made  public,  since  it  may  give  pain 
That  cannot  soon  be  cured  again, 
And  one  word  may  infix  a  stain 

Which  ten  cannot  gloss  over, 
Though  speaking  for  his  private  part, 
He  is  rejoiced  with  all  his  heart 

Miss  Knott  missed  not  her  lover. 


322 


AN  ORIENTAL  APOLOGUE. 


AN  ORIENTAL  APOLOGUE. 


Somewhere  in  India,  upon  a  time, 
(Read  it  not  Injah,  or  you  spoil  the 
verse,) 

There  dwelt  two  saints  whose  privi- 
lege sublime 
It  was  to  sit  and  watch  the  world  grow 
worse, 

Their  only  care  (in  that  delicious 
clime) 

At  proper  intervals  to  pray  and  curse  ; 
Pracrit  the    dialect  each  prudent 
brother 

Used  for  himself,  Damnonian  for  the 
other. 

ii. 

One  half  the  time  of  each  was  spent 
in  praying 
For  blessings  on  his  own  unworthy 
head, 

The  other  half  in  fearfully  portraying 
Where  certain  folks  would  go  when  they 

were  dead ; 
This  system  of  exchanges  —  there 's 

no  saying 

To  what  more  solid  barter 't  would  have 
led, 

But  that  a  river,  vext  with  boils  and 
swellings 

At  rainy  times,  kept  peace  between 
their  dwellings. 

in. 

So  they  two  played  at  wordy  battle- 
dore 

And  kept  a  curse  forever  in  the  air, 
Flying  this  way  or  that  from  shore 
to  shore; 
Nor  other  labor  did  this  holy  pair, 
Clothed  and  supported  from  the  lavish 
store 

Which  crowds  lanigerous  brought  with 
daily  care  ; 


They  toiled  not  neither  did  they  spin  ; 
their  bias 

Was  tow'rd  the  harder  task  of  being 
pious. 

IV. 

Each  from  his  hut  rushed  six  score 
times  a  day, 
Like  a  great  canon  of  the  Church  full- 
rammed 

With  cartridge  theologic,  (so  to  say,) 
Touched  himself  off",  and  then,  recoiling, 
slammed 

His  hovel's  door  behind  him  in  a  way 
That  to  his  foe  said  plainly,  —  you  11 

be  damned  ; 
And  so  like  Potts  and  Wainwright, 

shrill  and  strong 
The  two  D — D'd  each  other  all  day 

long. 

v. 

One  was  a  dancing  Dervise,  a  Mo- 
hammedan, 
The  other  was  a  Hindoo,  a  gymnoso- 
phist  ; 

One  kept  his  whatd'yecallit  and  his 
Ramadan, 

Laughing  to  scorn  the  sacred  rites  and 

laws  of  his 
Transfluvial  rival,  who,  in  turn,  called 

Ahmed  an 
Old  top,  and,  as  a  clincher,  shook  across 

a  fist 

With  nails  six  inches  long,  yet  lifted 
not 

His  eyes  from  off  his  navel's  mystic 
knot. 

VI. 

"  Who  whirls  not  round  six  thousand 
times  an  hour 
Will  go,"  screamed  Ahmed,  "to  t 
evil  place  ; 


AN  ORIENTAL  APOLOGUE. 


323 


May  he  eat  dirt,  and  may  the  dog  and 
Giaour 

Defile  the  graves  of  him  and  all  his 

race ; 

Allah  loves  faithful  souls  and  gives 

them  power 
To  spin  till  they  are  purple  in  the  face  ; 
Some  folks  get  you  know  what,  but 

he  that  pure  is 
Earns  Paradise  and  ninety  thousand 

houries." 


' '  Upon  the  silver  mountain,  South 
by  East, 

Sits  Brahma  fed  upon  the  sacred  bean  ; 
He  loves  those  men  whose  nails  are 

still  increased, 
Who  all  their  lives  keep  ugly,  foul,  and 

lean  ; 

'T  is  of  his  grace  that  not  a  bird  or 
beast 

Adorned  with  claws  like  mine  was  ever 
seen  ; 

The  suns  and  stars  are  Brahma's 

thoughts  divine 
Even  as  these  trees  I  seem  to  see  are 

mine." 

VIII. 

"Thou  seem'st   to  see,  indeed!" 
roared  Ahmed  back ; 
"  Were  I  but  once  across  this  plaguy 
stream, 

With  a  stout  sapling  in  my  hand,  one 
whack 

On  those  lank  ribs  would  rid  thee  of 
that  dream  i 
Thy  Brahma-blasphemy  is  ipecac 
To  my  soul's  stomach  ;  couldst  thou 
grasp  the  scheme 
Of  true  redemption,  thou  wouldst 

know  that  Deity 
Whirls  by  a  kind  of  blessed  sponta- 
neity. 

IX. 

"  And  this  it  is  which  keeps  our  earth 
here  going 
With  all  the  stars."  —  "  0,  vile  !  but 
there's  a  place 
Prepared  for  such  ;  to  think  of  Brah- 
ma throwing 
Worlds  like  a  juggler's  balls  up  into 
Space  ! 

Why,  not  so  much  as  a  smooth  lotos 
blowing 

Is  e'er  allowed  that  silence  to  efface 


Which  broods  round  Brahma,  and 

our  earth,  't  is  known, 
Rests  on  a  tortoise,  moveless  as  this 

stone." 

x. 

So  they  kept  up  their  banning  amoe- 

baean, 

When  suddenly  came  floating  down  the 
stream 

A  youth  whose  face  like  an  incarnate 

psean 

Glowed,  't  was  so  full  of  grandeur  and 

of  gleam  ; 
"If  there  be  gods,  then,  doubtless, 

this  must  be  one," 
Thought  both  at  once,  and  then  began 

to  scream, 
"  Surely,  whate'er  immortals  know, 

thou  knowest, 
Decide  between  us  twain  before  thou 

goest !  " 

XI. 

The  youth  was  drifting  in  a  slim  ca- 
noe 

Most  like  a  huge  white  waterlily's  petal, 

But  neither  of  our  theologians  knew 
Whereof  't  was  made ;  whether  of  heav- 
enly metal 
Unknown,  or  of  a  vast  pearl  split  in 
two 

And  hollowed,  was  a  point  they  could 
not  settle  ; 
'T  was  good  debate-seed,  though,  and 

bore  large  fruit 
In  after  years  of  many  a  tart  dispute. 


There  were  no  wings  upon  the  stran- 
ger's shoulders 
And  yet  he  seemed  so  capable  of  rising 

That,  had  he  soared  like  thistledown, 
beholders 

Had  thought  the  circumstance  noways 
surprising  ; 
Enough  that  he  remained,  and,  when 
the  scolders 
Hailed  him  as  umpire  in  their  vocal 
prize-ring, 
The  painter  of  his  boat  he  lightly 
threw 

Around  a  lotos-stem,  and  brought  her 
to. 


The  strange  youth  had  a  look  as  if 
he  might 


32i 


AN  ORIENTAL  APOLOGUE. 


Have  trod  far  planets  where  the  atmos- 
phere 

(Of  nobler  temper")  steeps  the  face 
with  light, 
Just  as  our  skins  are  tanned  and  freck- 
led here  ; 
His  air  was  that  of  a  cosmopolite 
In  the  wide  universe  from  sphere  to 
sphere  ; 

Perhaps  he  was  (his  face  had  such 

grave  beauty1) 
An  officer  of  Saturn's  guards  off  dutv. 


Both  saints  began  to  unfold  their  tales 
at  once, 

Both  wished   their   tales,  like  simial 

ones,  prehensile, 
That  they  might  seize  his  ear  ;  fool ! 

knave  !  and  dunce  / 
Flew  zigzag  back  and  forth,  like  strokes 

of  pencil 

In  a  child's  lingers  ;  voluble  as  duns. 
They  jabbered  like  the  stones  on  that 

immense  hill 
In  the  Arabian  Nights  ;  until  the 

stranger 

Began  to  think  his  ear-drums  in  some 
danger. 


In  general  those  who  nothing  have  to 
say 

Contrive  to  spend  the  longest  time  in 
doing  it  ; 
They  turn  and  vaiy  it  in  every  way, 
Hashing  it.  stewing  it,  mincing  it,  ra- 
gout ing  it ; 
Sometimes  they  keep  it  purposely  at 
bay, 

Then  let  it  slip  to  be  again  pursuing  it  ; 
They  drone  it,  groan  it,  whisper  it 

and  shout  it, 
Refute  it.  flout  it,  swear  to  't,  prove 

it,  doubt  it. 


Our  saints  had  practised  for  some 
thirty  years ; 
Their  talk,  beginning  with  a  single  stem. 
Spread  like  a  banyan,  sending  down 
live  piers, 
Colonies  of  digression,  and.  in  them, 
Germs  of  yet  new  dispersion  ;  once 
by  the  ears, 
Thev  could  convey  damnation  in  a  hem. 


And  blow  the  pinch  of  premise-prim- 
ing off 

Long  syllogistic   batteries,  with  a 
cough. 

XVII. 

Each  had  a  theory  that  the  human 
ear 

A  providential  tunnel  was,  which  led 
To  a  huge  vacuum  (and  surely  here 
They  showed  some  knowledge  of  the 
general  head), 
For  cant  to  be  decanted  through,  a 
mere 

Auricular  canal  or  mill-race  fed 

All  day  and  night,  in  sunshine  and  in 

shower, 

From  their  vast  heads  of  milk-and- 
water-power. 

XVIII. 

The  present  being  a  peculiar  case, 
Each  with  unwonted  zeal  the  other 
scouted, 

Put  his  spurred  hobby  through  its 
every  pace, 
Pished,  pshawed,   poohed,  horribled, 
bahed,  jeered,  sneered,  flouted, 
Sniffed,  nonsensed,  inlideled,  fudged, 
with  his  face 
Looked  scorn  too  nicely  shaded  to  be 
shouted, 

And,  with  each  inch  of  person  and  of 

vesture, 

Contrived  to  hint  some  most  disdain- 
ful gesture. 

XIX. 

At  length,  when  their  breath's  end 
was  come  about, 
And  both  could,  now  and  then,  just 
gasp  "  impostor  !  " 
Holding  their  heads  thrust  mena- 
cingly out, 
As  staggering  cocks  keep  up  their  fight- 
ing posture, 
The  stranger  smiled  and  said,  "  Be- 
yond a  doubt 
T  is  fortunate,   my  friends,  that  you 
have  lost  your 
United  parts  of  speech,  or  it  had  been 
Impossible  for  me  to  get  between. 


"  Produce  !  says  Nature,  • 
you  produced  ? 


-  what  have 


AN  OMENTA 

A  new  strait-waistcoat  for  the  human 
mind ; 

Are  you  not  limbed,  nerved,  jointed, 
arteried,  juiced, 
As  other  men  ?  yet,  faithless  to  your 
kind, 

Rather  like  noxious  insects  you  are 
used 

To  puncture  life's  fair  fruit,  beneath  the 
rind 

Laying  your  creed-eggs  whence  in 

time  there  spring 
Consumers  new  to  eat  and  buzz  and 

sting. 

XXI. 

"Work!  you  have  no  conception 
how  't  will  sweeten 
Your  views  of  Life  and  Nature,  God 
and  Man  ; 
Had  you  been  forced  to  earn  what  you 
have  eaten, 
Your  heaven  had  shown  a  less  dyspep- 
tic plan  ; 

At  present  your  whole  function  is  to 
eat  ten 

And  talk  ten  times  as  rapidly  as  you 
can  ; 

Were  your  shape  true  to  cosmogonic 
laws, 

You  would  be  nothing  but  a  pair  of 
jaws. 

XXII. 

"  Of  all  the  useless  beings  in  creation 
The  earth  could  spare  most  easily  you 
bakers 

Of  little  clay  gods,  formed  in  shape 
and  fashion 
Precisely  in  the  image  of  their  makers  ; 
Why,  it  would  almost  move  a  saint 
to  passion, 
To  see  these  blind  and  deaf,  the  hourly 
breakers 

Of  God's  own  image  in  their  brother 
men, 

Set  themselves  up  to  tell  the  how, 
where,  when, 

XXIII. 

"Of  God's  existence  ;  one's  diges- 
tion 's  worse  — 
So  makes  a  god  of  vengeance  and  of 
blood  ; 

Another,  —  but  no  matter,  they  re- 
verse 


Cj  APOLOGUE.  325 

Creation's  plan,  out  of  their  own  vile 
mud 

Pat  up  a  god,  and  burn,  drown,  hang, 
or  curse 

Whoever  worships  not ;  each  keeps  his 
stud 

Of  texts  which  wait  with  saddle  on 
and  bridle 
To  hunt  hown  atheists  to  their  ugly 
idol. 

XXIV. 

"  This,  I  perceive,  has  been  your  oc- 
cupation ; 

You  should  have  been  more  usefully 
employed  ; 
All  men  are  bound  to  earn  their  daily 
ration, 

Where  States  make  not  that  primal  con- 
tract void 
By  cramps  and  limits ;  simple  devas- 
tation 

Is  the  worm's  task,  and  what  he  has 
destroyed 

His  monument ;  creating  is  man's 
work 

And  that,  too,  something  more  than 
mist  and  murk." 

XXV. 

So  having  said,  the  youth  was  seen  no 
more, 

And  straightway  our  sage  Brahmin,  the 

philosopher, 
Cried,  "  That  was  aimed  at  thee,  thou 

endless  bore, 
Idle  and  useless  as  the  growth  of  moss 

over 

A  rotting  tree-trunk!"    "I  would 

square  that  score 
Full  soon,"  replied  the  Dervise,  "  could 

I  cross  over 
And  catch  thee  by  the  beard.  Thy 

nails  I  'd  trim 
And  make  thee  work,  as  was  advised 

by  him." 

XXVI. 

"Work?    Am  I  not  at  work  from 
mom  till  night 
Sounding  the  deeps  of  oracles  umbilical 
Which  for  man's  guidance  never  come 
to  light, 

With  all  their  various  aptitudes,  until 
I  call  ?" 

"And  I,  do  I  not  twirl  from  left  to 
right 


326 


AN  ORIENTAL  APOLOGUE. 


For  conscience'  sake  ?  Is  that  no  work  ? 
Thou  silly  gull, 
He  had  thee  in  his  eye ;  't  was  Ga- 
briel 

Sent  to  reward  my  faith,  I  know  him 
well." 

XXVIT. 

"  'T  was  Vishnu,   thou  vile  whirli- 
gig ! "  and  so 
The  good  old  quarrel  was  begun  anew  ; 
One  would  have  sworn  the  sky  was 
black  as  sloe, 
Had  but  the  other  dared  to  call  it  blue  ; 
Nor  were  the  followers  who  fed  them 
slow 

To  treat  each  other  with  their  curses, 
too, 

Each  hating  t'  other  (moves  it  tears  or 

laughter  ?) 
Because  he  thought  him  sure  of  hell 

hereafter. 

XXVIII. 

At  last  some  genius  built  a  bridge  of 
boats 

Over  the  stream,  and  Ahmed's  zealots 
filed 

Across,  upon  a  mission  to  (cut  throats 
And)  spread  religion  pure  and  undefiled ; 
They  sowed  the  propagandist's  wild- 
est oats, 

Cutting  off  all,  down  to  the  smallest 
child, 

And  came  back,  giving  thanks  for 

such  fat  mercies, 
To  find  their  harvest  gone  past  prayers 

or  curses. 

XXIX. 

All  gone  except  their  saint's  religious 
hops, 

Which  he  kept  up  with  more  than  com- 
mon flourish  ; 
But  these,  however  satisfying  crops 

For  the  inner  man,  were  not  enough  to 
nourish 

The  body  politic,  which  quickly  drops 
Reserve  in  such  sad  junctures,  and  turns 
currish ; 

So  Ahmed  soon  got  cursed  for  all  the 
famine 

Where'er  the  popular  voice  could  edge 
a  damn  in. 


XXX. 

At  first  he  pledged  a  miracle  quite 
boldly, 

And,  for  a  day  or  two,  they  growled  and 
waited ; 

But,  finding  that  this  kind  of  manna 
coldly 

Sat  on  their  stomachs,  they  erelong  be- 
rated 

The  saint  for  still  persisting  in  that 
old  lie, 

Till  soon  the  whole  machine  of  saintship 
grated, 

Ran  slow,  creaked,  stopped,  and, 
wishing  him  in  Tophet, 

They  gathered  strength  enough  to 
stone  the  prophet. 

XXXI. 

Some  stronger  ones  contrived  (by 
eating  leather, 
Their  weaker  friends,  and  one  thing  or 
another) 

The  winter  months  of  scarcity  to 
weather ; 

Among  these  was  the  late  saint's  younger 
brother, 

Who,  in  the  spring,  collecting  them 
together, 

Persuaded  them  that  Ahmed's  holy 
pother 

Had  wrought  in  their  behalf,  and  that 
the  place 

Of  Saint  should  be  continued  to  his 
race. 

XXXII. 

Accordingly,  'twas  settled  on  the 
spot 

That  Allah  favored  that  peculiar  breed  ; 
Beside,  as  all  were  satisfied,  't  would 
not 

Be  quite  respectable  to  have  the  need 

Of  public  spiritual  food  forgot ; 
And  so  the  tribe,  with  proper  forms,  de- 
creed 

That  he,  and,  failing  him,  his  next  of 
kin, 

Forever  for  the  people's  good  should 
spin. 


UNDER  THE  WILLOWS, 

AND 

OTHER  POEMS. 


UNDEK  THE  WILLOWS. 


TO  CHARLES  ELIOT  NORTON. 

AGRO  DOLCE. 

The  wind  is  roistering  out  of  doors, 
My  windows  shake  and  my  chimney 
roars ; 

My  Elmwood  chimneys  seem  crooning 
to  me, 

As  of  old,  in  their  moody,  minor  key, 
And  out  of  the  past  the  hoarse  wind 
blows, 

As  I  sit  in  my  arm-chair,  and  toast  my 
toes. 

"Ho!  ho!  nine-and-forty,"  they  seem 
to  sing, 

"  We  saw  you  a  little  toddling  thing. 
We  knew  you  child  and  youth  and  man, 
A  wonderful  fellow  to  dream  and  plan, 
With  a  great  thing  always  to  come,  — 

who  knows? 
Well,  well ! 't  is  some  comfort  to  toast 

one's  toes. 

"  How  many  times  have  you  sat  at  gaze 
Till  the  mouldering  fire  forgot  to  blaze, 
Shaping  among  the  whimsical  coals 
Fancies  and  figures  and  shining  goals  !  , 
What  matters  the  ashes  that  cover  those  ? 
While  hickory  lasts  you  can  toast  your 
toes. 

"0  dream-ship-builder!  where  are  they 
all, 

Your  grand  three-deckers,  deep-chested 
and  tall, 

That  should  crush  the  waves  under  can- 
vas piles, 

And  anchor  at  last  by  the  Fortunate 
Isles? 

There 's  gray  in  your  beard,  the  years 
turn  foes, 

While  you  muse  in  your  arm-chair,  and 
toast  your  toes." 


I  sit  and  dream  that  I  hear,  as  of  yore, 
My  Elmwood  chimneys'  deep-throated 
roar ; 

If  much  be  gone,  there  is  much  remains ; 
By  the  embers  of  loss  I  count  my  gains, 
You  and  yours  with  the  best,  till  the 

old  hope  glows 
In  the  fanciful  flame,  as  I  toast  my  toes. 

Instead  of  a  fleet  of  broad-browed  ships, 
To  send  a  child's  armada  of  chips  ! 
Instead  of  the  great  guns,  tier  on  tier, 
A  freight  of  pebbles  and  grass-blades 
sere ! 

"Well,  maybe  more  love  with  the  less 

gift  goes," 
I  growl,  as,  half  moody,  I  toast  my  toes. 


UNDER  THE  WILLOWS. 

Frank-hearted  hostess  of  the  field  and 
wood, 

Gypsy,  whose  roof  is  every  spreading 
tree, 

June  is  the  pearl  of  our  New  England 
year. 

Still  a  surprisal,  though  expected  long, 
Her  coming  startles.    Long  she  lies  in 
wait, 

Makes  many  a  feint,  peeps  forth,  draws 

coyly  back, 
Then,  from  some  southern  ambush  in 

the  sky, 

With  one  great  gush  of  blossom,  storms 

the  world. 
A  week  ago  the  sparrow  was  divine  ; 
The  bluebird,  shifting  his  light  load  of 

song 

From  post  to  post  along  the  cheerless 
fence, 

Was  as  a  rhymer  ere  the  poet  come ; 
But  now,  O  rapture  !  sunshine  winged 
and  voiced, 


UNDER  THE  WILLOWS. 


Pipe  blown  through  by  the  warm  wild 

breath  of  the  West 
Shepherding  his  soft  droves  of  fleecy 

cloud, 

Gladness  of  woods,  skies,  waters,  all  in 
one, 

The  bobolink  has  come,  and,  like  the 
soul 

Of  the  sweet  season  vocal  in  a  bird, 
Gurgles  in  ecstasy  we  know  not  what 
Save  June!  Dear  June  I  Xow  God  be 
praised  for  Jane. 

May  is  a  pious  fraud  of  the  almanac, 
A  ghastly  parody  of  real  Spring 
Shaped  out  of  snow  and  breathed  with 

eastern  wind  ; 
Or  if,  o'er-eonfident,  she  trust  the  date, 
And,  with  her  handful  of  anemones. 
Herself  as  shivery,  steal  into  the  sun, 
The  season  need  but  turn  his  hourglass 

round, 

And  Winter  suddenly,  like  crazy  Lear, 
Reek  back,  and  brings  the  dead  May  in 
his  arms, 

Her  budding  breasts  and  wan  dislnstred 
front 

With  frosty  streaks  and  drifts  of  his 

white  beard 
All  overblown.    Then,  warmly  walled 

with  books. 
While  my  wood-fire  supplies  the  sun's 

defect, 

Whispering    old    forest-sagas    in  its 
dreams, 

I  take  my  May  down  from  the  happy 
shelf 

Where  perch  the  world's  rare  song-birds 
in  a  row, 

Waiting  my  choice  to  open  with  full 
breast, 

And  beg  an  alms  of  spring-time,  ne'er 
denied 

In-doors  by  vernal  Chaucer,  whose  fresh 
woods 

Throb  thick  with  merle  and  mavis  all 
the  year. 

July  breathes  hot,  sallows  the  crispy 
fields, 

Curls  up  the  wan  leaves  of  the  lilac- 
hedge, 

And  every  eve  cheats  us  with  show  of 
clouds 

That  braze  the  horizon's  western  rim,  or 
hang 


Motionless,  with  heaped  canvas  drooping 
idly, 

Like  a  dim  fleet  by  starving  men  be- 
sieged, 

Conjectured  half,   and   half  descried 
afar, 

Helpless  of  wind,  and  seeming  to  slip 

back 

Adown  the  smooth  curve  of  the  oily 
sea. 

But  June  is  full  of  invitations  sweet. 
Forth  from  the  chimney's  yawn  and 

thrice-read  tomes 
To  leisurely  delights  and  sauntering 

thoughts 

That  brook  no  ceiling  narrower  than  the 
blue. 

The  cherry,  drest  for  bridal,  at  my  pain1 
Brushes,  then  listens,  JVill  he  come? 
The  bee, 

All  dusty  as  a  miller,  takes  his  toll 

Of  powdery  gold,  and  grumbles.  What 

a  day 

To  sun  me  and  do  nothing  \    Nay,  I 
think 

Merely  to  bask  and  ripen  is  sometimes 
The  student's  wiser  business  ;  the  brain 
That  forages  all  climes  to  line  its  cells. 
Ranging  both  worlds  on  lightest  v 
of  wish, 

Will  not  distil  the  juices  it  has  sucked 
To   the   sweet   substance   of  pellucid 
thought, 

Except  for  him  who  hath  the  secret 

learned 

To  mix  his  blood  with  sunshine,  and  to 
take 

The  winds  into  his  pulses.     Hush  ! 

't  is  he  ! 

My  oriole,  my  glance  of  summer  fire, 
Is  come  at  last,  and,  ever  on  the  watch, 
Twitches  the  pack-thread  I  had  lightly 

wound 

About  the  bough  to  help  his  housekeep- 
ing. — 

Twitches  and  scouts  by  turns,  bles^ng 
his  luck, 

Yet  fearing  me  who  laid  it  in  his  way. 
Nor,  more  than  wiser  we  in  our  affairs, 
Divines  the  providence  that  hides  and 
helps. 

Heave,  ho!  Heave,  ho!  he  whistles  as 
the  twine 

Slackens  its  hold ;  once  more,  now  I  and 
a  flash 

Lightens  across  the  sunlight  to  the  elm 


UNDER  THE  WILLOWS.  331 


Where  his  mate  dangles  at  her  cup  of 
felt. 

Nor  all  his  booty  is  the  thread ;  he  trails 
My  loosened  thought  with  it  along  the 
air, 

And  I  must  follow,  would  I  ever  find 
The  inward  rhyme  to  all  this  wealth  of 
life. 

I  care  not  how  men  trace  their  ancestry, 
To  ape  or  Adam ;  let  them  please  their 
whim  ; 

But  1  in  June  am  midway  to  believe 
A  tree  among  my  far  progenitors, 
Such  sympathy  is  mine  with  all  the 
race, 

Such  mutual  recognition  vaguely  sweet 
There  is  between  us.    Surely  there  are 
times 

When  they  consent  to  own  me  of  their 
kin, 

And  condescend  to  me,  and  call  me 
cousin, 

Murmuring  faint  lullabies  of  eldest  time, 
Forgotten,  and  yet  dumbly  felt  with 
thrills 

Moving  the  lips,  though  fruitless  of  the 
words. 

And  I  have  many  a  lifelong  leafy  friend, 
Never  estranged  nor  careful  of  my  soul, 
That  knows  I  hate  the  axe,  and  wel- 
comes me 
Within  his  tent  as  if  I  were  a  bird, 
Or  other  free  companion  of  the  earth, 
Yet  undegenerate  to  the  shifts  of  men. 
Among  them  one,  an  ancient  willow, 
spreads 

Eight  balanced  limbs,  springing  at  once 
all  round 

His  deep-ridged  trunk  with  upward  slant 
diverse, 

In  outline  like  enormous  beaker,  fit 
For  hand  of  Jotun,  where  mid  snow 
and  mist 

He  holds  unwieldy  revel.    This  tree, 
spared, 

I  know  not  by  what  grace,  —  for  in  the 
blood 

Of  our  New  World  subduers  lingers  yet 
Hereditary  feud  with  trees,  they  being 
(They  and  the  red-man  most)  our  fathers' 
foes,  — 

Is  one  of  six,  a  willow  Pleiades, 
The  seventh  fallen,  that  lean  along  the 
brink 

Where  the  steep  upland  dips  into  the 
marsh, 


Their  roots,  like  molten  metal  cooled  in 
flowing, 

Stiffened  in  coils  and  runnels  down  the 
bank. 

The  friend  of  all  the  winds,  wide-armed 
he  towers 

And  glints  his  steely  aglets  in  the 
sun, 

Or  whitens  fitfully  with  sudden  bloom 
Of  leaves  breeze-lifted,  much  as  when  a 
shoal 

Of  devious  minnows  wheel  from  where  a 
pike 

Lurks  balanced  'neath  the  lily-pads,  and 
whirl 

A  rood  of  silver  bellies  to  the  day. 

Alas !  no  acorn  from  the  British  oak 
'Neath    which    slim   fairies  tripping 

wrought  those  rings 
Of  greenest  emerald,  wherewith  fireside 

life 

Did  with  the  invisible  spirit  of  Nature 
wed, 

Was  ever  planted  here  !     No  darnel 

fancy 

Might  choke  one  useful  blade  in  Puri- 
tan fields  ; 

With  horn  and  hoof  the  good  old  Devil 
came, 

The  witch's  broomstick  was  not  contra- 
band, 

But  all  that  superstition  had  of  fair, 
Or  piety  of  native  sweet,  was  doomed. 
And  if  there  be  who  nurse  unholy  faiths, 
Fearing  their  god  as  if  he  were  a 
wolf 

That  snuffed  round  every  home  and  was 
not  seen, 

There  should  be  some  to  watch  and  keep 
alive 

All  beautiful  beliefs.  And  such  was 
that,  — 

By  solitary  shepherd  first  surmised 
Under  Thessalian  oaks,  loved  by  some 
maid 

Of  royal  stirp,  that  silent  came  and  van- 
ished, 

As  near  her  nest  the  hermit  thrush,  nor 
dared 

Confess  a  mortal  name,  —  that  faith 

which  gave 
A  Hamadryad  to  each  tree  ;  and  I 
Will  hold  it  true  that  in  this  willow 

dwells 

The  open-handed  spirit,  frank  and 
blithe, 


332 


UNDER  THE  WILLOWS. 


Of  ancient  Hospitality,  long  since, 
With  ceremonious  thrift,  bowed  out  of 
doors. 

In  June  't  is  good  to  lie  beneath  a 
tree 

While  the  blithe  season  comforts  every 
sense, 

Steeps  all  the  brain  in  rest,  and  heals 
the  heart, 

Brimming  it  o'er  with  sweetness  una- 
wares, 

Fragrant  and  silent  as  that  rosy  snow 
Wherewith  the  pitying  apple-tree  fills 
up 

And  tenderly  lines  some  last-year  robin's 
nest. 

There  muse  I  of  old  times,  old  hopes, 
old  friends,  — 

Old  friends  !  The  writing  of  those 
words  has  borne 

My  fancy  backward  to  the  gracious  past, 

The  generous  past,  when  all  was  pos- 
sible, 

For  all  was  then  untried ;  the  years  be- 
tween 

Have  taught  some  sweet,  some  bitter 

lessons,  none 
Wiser  than  this,  — to  spend  in  all  things 

else, 

But  of  old  friends  to  be  most  miserly. 
Each  year  to  ancient  friendships  adds  a 
ring, 

As  to  an  oak,  and  precious  more  and 
more, 

Without  deservingness  or  help  of  ours, 
They  grow,  and,  silent,  wider  spread, 
each  year, 

Their  unbought  ring  of  shelter  or  of 
shade. 

Sacred  to  me  the  lichens  on  the  bark, 
Which  Nature's  milliners  would  scrape 
away ; 

Most  dear  and  sacred  every  withered 
limb ! 

'T  is  good  to  set  them  early,  for  our 
faith 

Pines  as  we  age,  and,  after  wrinkles 
come, 

Few  plant,  but  water  dead  ones  with 
vain  tears. 

This  willow  is  as  old  to  me  as  life ; 
And  under  it  full  often  have  I  stretched, 
Feeling  the  warm  earth  like  a  thing 
alive, 

And  gathering  virtue  in  at  every  pore 


Till  it  possessed  me  wholly,  and  thought 

ceased, 

Or  was  transfused  in  something  to  which 
thought 

Is  coarse  and  dull  of  sense.    Myself  was 
lost, 

Gone  from  me  like  an  ache,  and  what 

remained 
Became  a  part  of  the  universal  joy. 
My  soul  went  forth,  and,  mingling  with 

the  tree, 

Danced  in  the  leaves ;  or,  floating  in 
the  cloud, 

Saw  its  white  double  in  the  stream  be- 
low; 

Or  else,  sublimed  to  purer  ecstasy, 
Dilated  in  the  broad  blue  over  all. 
I  was  the  wind  that  dappled  the  lush 
grass, 

The  tide  that  crept  with  coolness  to  its 
roots, 

The  thin-winged  swallow  skating  on 
the  air ; 

The  life  that  gladdened  everything  was 
mine. 

Was  I  then  truly  all  that  I  beheld  ? 
Or  is  this  stream  of  being  but  a  glass 
Where  the  mind  sees  its  visionary  self, 
As,  when  the  kingfisher  flits  o'er  his 
bay, 

Across  the  river's  hollow  heaven  below 
His  picture  flits,  —  another,  yet  the 
same  ? 

But  suddenly  the  sound  of  human  voice 
Or  footfall,  like  the  drop  a  chemist 
pours, 

Doth  in  opacous  cloud  precipitate 

The  consciousness  that  seemed  but  now 

dissolved 
Into  an  essence  rarer  than  its  own, 
And  I  am  narrowed  to  myself  once  more. 

For  here  not  long  is  solitude  secure, 
Nor  Fantasy  left  vacant  to  her  spell. 
Here,  sometimes,  in  this  paradise  of 
shade, 

Rippled  with  western  winds,  the  dusty 
Tramp, 

Seeing  the  treeless  causey  burn  beyond, 
Halts  to  unroll  his  bundle  of  strange 
food 

And  munch  an  unearned  meal.    I  can- 
not help 

Liking  this  creature,  lavish  Summer's 

bedesman, 
Who  from  the  almshouse  steals  when 

nights  grow  warm, 


UNDER  THE  WILLOWS. 


333 


Himself  his  large  estate  and  only  charge, 
To  be  the  guest  of  haystack  or  of  hedge, 
Nobly  superior  to  the  household  gear 
That  forfeits  us  our  privilege  of  nature. 
I  bait  him  with  my  match-box  and  my 
pouch, 

Nor  grudge  the  uncostly  sympathy  of 
smoke, 

His  equal  now,  divinely  unemployed. 
Some  smack  of  Robin  Hood  is  in  the 
man, 

Some  secret  league  with  wild  wood- 
wandering  things; 

He  is  our  ragged  Duke,  our  barefoot 
Earl, 

By  right  of  birth  exonerate  from  toil, 
Who  levies  rent  from  us  his  tenants  all, 
And  serves  the  state  by  merely  being. 
Here 

The  Scissors -grinder,  pausing,  doffs  his 
hat, 

/  And  lets  the  kind  breeze,  with  its  deli- 
cate fan, 

Winnow  the  heat  from  out  his  dank 
gray  hair,  — 

A  grimy  Ulysses,  a  much-wandered  man, 

Whose  feet  are  known  to  all  the  popu- 
lous ways, 

And  many  men  and  manners  he  hath 
seen, 

Not  without  fruit  of  solitary  thought. 
He,  as  the  habit  is  of  lonely  men,  — 
Unused  to  try  the  temper  of  their  mind 
In  fence  with  others,  —  positive  and  shy, 
Yet  knows  to  put  an  edge  upon  his 
speeeh, 

Pithily  Saxon  in  unwilling  talk. 
Him  I  entrap  with  my  long-suffering 
knife, 

And,  while  its  poor  blade  hums  away  in 
sparks, 

Sharpen  my  wit  upon  his  gritty  mind, 
In  motion  set  obsequious  to  his  wheel, 
And  in  its  quality  not  much  unlike. 

Nor  wants  my  tree  more  punctual  vis- 
itors. 

The  children,  they  who  are  the  only  rich, 
Creating  for  the  moment,  and  possessing 
Whate'er  they  choose  to  feign,  —  for 

still  with  them 
Kind  Fancy  plays  the  fairy  godmother, 
Strewing  their  lives  with  cheap  material 
For  winged  horses  and  Aladdin's  lamps, 
Pure  elfin-gold,  by  manhood's  touch 

profane 

To  dead  leaves  disenchanted,  —  long  ago 


Between  the  branches  of  the  tree  fixed 
seats, 

Making  an  o'erturned  box  their  table. 
Oft 

The  shrilling  girls  sit  here  between 

school  hours, 
And  play  at  What 's  my  thought  like? 

while  the  boys, 
With  whom  the  age  chivalric  ever  bides, 
Pricked  on  by  knightly  spur  of  female 

eyes, 

Climb  high  to  swing  and  shout  on  peril- 
ous boughs, 

Or,  from  the  willow's  armory  equipped 

With  musket  dumb,  green  banner,  edge- 
less  sword, 

Make  good  the  rampart  of  their  tree- 
redoubt 

'Gainst  eager  British  storming  from  be- 
low, 

And  keep  alive  the  tale  of  Bunker's 
Hill. 

Here,  too,  the  men  that  mend  our  vil- 
lage ways, 

Vexing  McAdam's  ghost  with  pounded 
slate, 

Their  nooning  take;  much  noisy  talk 

they  spend 
On  horses  and  their  ills;  and,  as  John 

Bull 

Tells  of  Lord  This  or  That,  who  was  his 
friend, 

So  these  make  boast  of  intimacies  long 
With  famous  teams,  and  add  large  esti- 
mates, 

By  competition  swelled  from  mouth  to 
mouth, 

Of  how  much  they  could  draw,  till  one, 

ill  pleased 
To  have  his  legend  overbid,  retorts : 
"You  take  and  stretch  truck-horses  in 

a  string 

From  here  to  Long  Wharf  end,  one 

thing  I  know, 
Not  heavy  neither,  they  could  never 

draw,  — 

Ensign's  long  bow ! "  Then  laughter 
loud  and  long. 

So  they  in  their  leaf-shadowed  micro- 
cosm 

Image  the  larger  world ;  for  wheresoe'er 
Ten  men  are  gathered,  the  observant  eye 
Will  find  mankind  in  little,  as  the  stars 
Glide  up  and  set,  and  all  the  heavens 
revolve 

In  the  small  welkin  of  a  drop  of  dew. 


334 


UNDER  THE  WILLOWS. 


I  love  to  enter  pleasure  by  a  postern, 
Not  the  broad  popular  gate  that  gulps 
the  mob ; 

To  find  my  theatres  in  roadside  nooks, 
Where  men  are  actors,  and  suspect  it 
not; 

Where  Nature  all  unconscious  works 
her  will, 

And  every  passion  moves  with  human 
gait, 

LTnhampered  by  the  buskin  or  the  train. 
Hating  the  crowd,  where  we  gregarious 
men 

Lead  lonely  lives,  I  love  society, 
Nor  seldom  find  the  best  with  simple 
souls 

Unswerved  by  culture  from  their  native 
bent, 

The  ground  we  meet  on  being  primal 
man 

And  nearer  the  deep  bases  of  our  lives. 

But  0,  half  heavenly,  earthly  half,  my 
soul, 

Canst  thou  from  those  late  ecstasies 
descend, 

Thy  lips  still  wet  with  the  miraculous 
wine 

That  transubstantiates  all  thy  baser  stuff 
To  such  divinity  that  soul  and  sense, 
Once  more  commingled  in  their  source, 

are  lost,  — 
Canst  thou  descend  to  quench  a  vulgar 

thirst 

With  the  mere  dregs  and  rinsings  of  the 
world  ? 

Well,  if  my  nature  find  her  pleasure 
so, 

I  am  content,  nor  need  to  blush;  I 
take 

My  little  gift  of  being  clean  from  God, 
Not  haggling  for  a  better,  holding  it 
Good  as  was  ever  any  in  the  world, 
My  days  as  good  and  full  of  miracle. 
I  pluck  my  nutriment  from  any  bush, 
Finding  out  poison  as  the  first  men 
did 

By  tasting  and  then  suffering,  if  I  must. 

Sometimes  my  bush  burns,  and  some- 
times it  is 

A  leafless  wilding  shivering  by  the  wall ; 

But  I  have  known  when  winter  bar- 
berries 

Pricked  the  effeminate  palate  with  sur- 
prise 

Of  savor  whose  mere  harshness  seemed 
divine. 


0,  benediction  of  the  higher  mood 
And  human-kindness  of  the  lower !  for 
both 

I  will  be  grateful  while  I  live,  nor  ques- 
tion 

The  wisdom  that  hath  made  us  what  we 
are, 

With  such  large  range  as  from  the  ale- 
house bench 

Can  reach  the  stars  and  be  with  both  at 
home. 

They  tell  us  we  have  fallen  on  prosy 
days, 

Condemned  to  glean  the  leavings  of 

earth's  feast 
Where  gods  and  heroes  took  delight  of 

old; 

But  though  our  lives,  moving  in  one 

dull  round 
Of  repetition  infinite,  become 
Stale  as  a  newspaper  once  read,  and 

though 

History  herself,  seen  in  her  workshop, 

seem 

To  have  lost  the  art  that  dyed  those 

glorious  panes, 
Rich  with  memorial  shapes  of  saint  and 

sage, 

That  pave  with  splendor  the  Past's 

dusky  aisles,  — 
Panes  that  enchant  the  light  of  common 

day 

With  colors  costly  as  the  blood  of 
kings, 

Till    with    ideal    hues    it   edge  our 

thought, — 
Yet  while  the  world  is  left,  while  nature 

lasts, 

And  man  the  best  of  nature,  there  shall 
be 

Somewhere  contentment  for  these  human 
hearts, 

Some  freshness,  some  unused  material 
For  wonder  and  for  song.    I  lose  myself 
In  other  ways  where  solemn  guide-posts 
say, 

This  way  to  Knowledge,  This  way  to 
Re}wsei 

But  here,  here  only,  I  am  ne'er  be- 
trayed, 

For  every  by-path  leads  me  to  my  love. 

God's  passionless  reformers,  influences, 
That  purify  and  heal  and  are  not  seen, 
Shall  man  say  whence  your  virtue  is,  or 
how 

Ye  make  medicinal  the  wayside  weed  ? 


DARA. 


335 


I  know  that  sunshine,  through  whatever 
rift 

How  shaped  it  matters  not,  upon  my 
walls 

Paints  discs  as  perfect-rounded  as  its 
source, 

And,  like  its  antitype,  the  ray  divine, 
However  finding  entrance,  perfect  still, 
Repeats  the  image  unimpaired  of  God. 

"We,  who  by  shipwreck  only  find  the 
shores 

Of  divine  wisdom,  can  but  kneel  at 
first ; 

Can  but  exult  to  feel  beneath  our  feet, 
That  long  stretched  vainly  down  the 

yielding  deeps, 
The  shock  and  sustenance  of  solid  earth  ; 
Inland  afar  we  see  what  temples  gleam 
/  Through  immemorial  stems  of  sacred 

groves, 

And  we  conjecture  shining  shapes  there- 
in; 

Yet  for  a  space  we  love  to  wonder  here 
Among  the  shells  and  sea-weed  of  the 
beach. 

So  mused  I  once  within  my  willow-tent 
One  brave  June  morning,  when  the 

bluff  northwest, 
Thrusting  aside  a  dank  and  snuffling 

day 

That  made  us  bitter  at  our  neighbors' 
Isins, 

Brimmed  the  great  cup  of  heaven  with 

sparkling  cheer 
And  roared  a  lusty  stave  ;  the  sliding 

Charles, 

Blue  toward  the  west,  and  bluer  and 
more  blue, 

Living  and  lustrous  as  a  woman's  eyes 

Look  once  and  look  no  more,  with  south- 
ward curve 

Ran  crinkling  sunniness,  like  Helen's 
hair 

Glimpsed  in  Elysium,  insubstantial 
gold ; 

From  blossom -clouded  orchards,  far 
away 

The  bobolink  tinkled;  the  deep  mead- 
ows flowed 

With  multitudinous  pulse  of  light  and 
shade 

Against  the  bases  of  the  southern  hills, 
While  here  and  there  a  drowsy  island 
rick 


Slept  and  its  shadow  slept ;  the  wooden 
bridge 

Thundered,  and  then  was  silent;  on  the 
roofs 

The  sun-warped  shingles  rippled  with 
the  heat ; 

Summer  on  field  and  hill,  in  heart  and 
brain, 

All  life  washed  clean  in  this  high  tide  of 
June. 

DARA. 

When  Persia's  sceptre  trembled  in  a 
hand 

Wilted  with  harem -heats,  and  all  the 
land 

Was  hovered  over  by  those  vulture  ills 
That  snuff  decaying  empire  from  afar, 
Then,  with  a  nature  balanced  as  a  star, 
Dara  arose,  a  shepherd  of  the  hills. 

He  who  had  governed  fleecy  subjects 
well 

Made  his  own  village  by  the  selfsame 
spell 

Secure  and  quiet  as  a  guarded  fold  ; 
Then,  gathering  strength  by  slow  and 

wise  degrees 
Under  his  sway,  to  neighbor  villages 
Order  returned,  and  faith  and  justice 

old. 

Now  when  it  fortuned  that  a  king  more 
wise 

Endued  the  realm  with  brain  and  hands 
and  eyes, 

He  sought  on  every  side  men  brave  and 
just  ; 

And  having  heard  our  mountain  shep- 
herd's praise, 
How  he  refilled  the  mould  of  elder  days, 
To  Dara  gave  a  satrapy  in  trust. 

So  Dara  shepherded  a  province  wide, 
Nor  in  his  viceroy's  sceptre  took  more 
pride 

Than  in  his  crook  before;  but  envy 
finds 

More  food  in  cities  than  on  mountains 
bare  ; 

And  the  frank  sun  of  natures  clear  and 
rare 

Breeds  poisonous  fogs  in  low  and  marish 
minds. 


336  THE  FIRST 

Soon  it  was  hissed  into  the  royal  ear, 
That,  though  wise  Dara's  province,  year 
by  year, 

Like  a  great  sponge,  sucked  wealth  and 

plenty  up, 
Yet,  when  he  squeezed  it  at  the  king's 

behest, 

Some  yellow  drops,  more  rich  than  all 
the  rest, 

Went  to  the  filling  of  his  private  cup. 

For  proof,  they  said,  that,  wheresoe'er 
he  went, 

A  chest,  beneath  whose  weight  the  camel 
bent, 

Went  with  him  ;  and  no  mortal  eye  had 

seen 

"What  was  therein,  save  only  Dara's 
own  ; 

But,  when  't  was  opened,  all  his  tent 

was  known 
To  glow  and  lighten  with  heaped  jewels' 

sheen. 

The  King  set  forth  for  Dara's  province 
straight ; 

There,  as  was  fit,  outside  the  city's  gate, 
The  viceroy  met  him  with  a  stately  train, 
And  there,  with  archers  circled,  close  at 
hand, 

A  camel  with  the  chest  was  seen  to 
stand  : 

The  King's  brow  reddened,  for  the  guilt 
was  plain. 

"  Open  me  here,"  he  cried,  4 *  this  treas- 
ure-chest ! " 

'T  was  done ;  and  only  a  worn  shepherd's 
vest 

Was  found  therein.    Some  blushed  and 

hung  the  head ; 
Not  Dara  ;  open  as  the  sky's  blue  roof 
He  stood,  and  ' '  0  my  lord,  behold  the 

proof 

That  I  was  faithful  to  my  trust,"  he 
said. 

"  To  govern  men,  lo  all  the  spell  I  had  ! 
My  soul  in  these  rude  vestments  ever 
clad 

Still  to  the  unstained  past  kept  true  and 
leal, 

Still  on  these  plains  could  breathe  her 

mountain  air, 
And  fortune's  heaviest  gifts  serenely 

bear, 

Which  bend  men  from  their  truth  and 
make  them  reel.  I 


SNOW-FALL. 

"  For  ruling  wisely  I  should  have  small 
skill, 

Were  I  not  lord  of  simple  Dara  still ; 
That  sceptre  kept,  I  could  not  lose  my 
way." 

Strange  dew  in  royal  eyes  grew  round 

and  bright, 
And  strained  the  throbbing  lids  ;  before 

't  was  night 
Two  added  provinces  blest  Dara's  sway. 


THE  FIRST  SNOW-FALL. 

The  snow  had  begun  in  the  gloaming, 

And  busily  all  the  night 
Had  been  heaping  field  and  highway 

With  a  silence  deep  and  white. 

Every  pine  and  fir  and  hemlock 
Wore  ermine  too  dear  for  an  earl, 

And  the  poorest  twig  on  the  elm-tree 
Was  ridged  inch  deep  with  pearl. 

From  sheds  new-roofed  with  Carrara 

Came  Chanticleer's  muffled  crow, 
The  stiff  rails  were  softened  to  swan's- 
down, 

And  still  fluttered  down  the  snow. 

I  stood  and  watched  by  the  window 
The  noiseless  work  of  the  sky, 

And  the  sudden  flurries  of  snow-birds, 
Like  brown  leaves  whirling  by. 

I  thought  of  a  mound  in  sweet  Auburn 
Where  a  little  headstone  stood  ; 

How  the  flakes  were  folding  it  gently, 
As  did  robins  the  babes  in  the  wood. 

Up  spoke  our  own  little  Mabel, 
Saying,    "Father,    who    makes  it 
snow  ?" 

And  I  told  of  the  good  All-father 
Who  cares  for  us  here  below. 

Again  I  looked  at  the  snow-fall, 
And  thought  of  the  leaden  sky 

That  arched  o'er  our  first  great  sorrow, 
When  that  mound  was  heaped  so  high. 

I  remembered  the  gradual  patience 
That  fell  from  that  cloud  like  snow, 

Flake  by  flake,  healing  and  hiding 
The  scar  of  our  deep-plunged  woe. 


THE  SINGING  LEAVES. 


337 


And  again  to  the  child  I  whispered, 
"The  snow  that  husheth  all, 

Darling,  the  merciful  Father 
Alone  can  make  it  fall  !  " 

Then,  with  eyes  that  saw  not,  I  kissed 
her ; 

And  she,  kissing  back,  could  not 
know 

That  my  kiss  was  given  to  her  sister, 
Folded  close  under  deepening  snow. 


THE  SINGING  LEAVES. 
A  BALLAD. 
I. 

"  What  fairings  will  ye  that  I  bring  ?" 

Said  the  King  to  his  daughters  three  ; 
"For  I  to  Vanity  Fair  am  boun, 

Now  say  what  shall  they  be  ? " 

Then  up  and  spake  the  eldest  daughter, 

That  lady  tall  and  grand  : 
"  0,  bring  me  pearls  and  diamonds  great, 

And  gold  rings  for  my  hand." 

Thereafter  spake  the  second  daughter, 

That  was  both  white  and  red  : 
"  For  me  bring  silks  that  will  stand 
alone, 

And  a  gold  comb  for  my  head. " 

Then  came  the  turn  of  the  least  daugh- 
J  ter, 

That  was  whiter  than  thistle-down, 
And  among  the  gold  of  her  blithesome 
hair 

Dim  shone  the  golden  crown. 

"  There  came  a  bird  this  morning, 
And  sang  'neath  my  bower  eaves, 

Till  I  dreamed,  as  his  music  made  me, 
'  Ask  thou  for  the  Singing  Leaves.'  " 

Then  the  brow  of  the  King  swelled 
crimson 

With  a  flush  of  angry  scorn  : 
"  Well  have  ye  spoken,  my  two  eldest, 

And  chosen  as  ye  were  born  ; 

"  But  she,  like  a  thing  of  peasant  race, 
That  is  happy  binding  the  sheaves  "  ; 
Then  he  saw  her  dead  mother  in  her 
face, 

And  said,   "  Thou  shalt  have  thy 
leaves." 

22 


II. 

He  mounted  and  rode  three  days  and 
nights 

Till  he  came  to  Vanity  Fair, 
And  't  was  easy  to  buy  the  gems  and 
the  silk, 

But  no  Singing  Leaves  were  there. 

Then  deep  in  the  greenwood  rode  he, 

And  asked  of  every  tree, 
"0,  if  you  have  ever  a  Singing  Leaf, 

I  pray  you  give  it  me  !  " 

But  the  trees  all  kept  their  counsel, 
And  never  a  word  said  they, 

Only  there  sighed  from  the  pine-tops 
A  music  of  seas  far  away. 

Only  the  pattering  aspen 

Made  a  sound  of  growing  rain, 

That  fell  ever  faster  and  faster, 
Then  faltered  to  silence  again. 

"  0,  where  shall  I  find  a  little  foot-page 
That  would  win  both  hose  and  shoon, 

And  will  bring  to  me  the  Singing  Leaves 
If  they  grow  under  the  moon  ?  " 

Then  lightly  turned  him  Walter  the 
page, 

By  the  stirrup  as  he  ran  : 
"  Now  pledge  you  me  the  truesome  word 
Of  a  king  and  gentleman, 

"That  you  will  give  me  the  first,  first 
thing 

You  meet  at  your  castle-gate, 
And  the  Princess  shall  get  the  Singing 
Leaves, 
Or  mine  be  a  traitor's  fate." 

The  King's  head  dropt  upon  his  breast 

A  moment,  as  it  might  be  ; 
'T  will  be  my  dog,  he  thought,  and  said, 

"My  faith  I  plight  to  thee." 

Then  Walter  took  from  next  his  heart 

A  packet  small  and  thin, 
"Now  give  you  this  to  the  Princess 
Anne, 

The  Singing  Leaves  are  therein." 


in. 

As  the  King  rode  in  at  his  castle-gate, 
A  maiden  to  meet  him  ran, 


\ 


338  THE  FINDING 

And  "  Welcome,  father  !  "  she  laughed 
and  cried 
Together,  the  Princess  Anne. 

"  Lo,  here  the  Singing  Leaves,"  quoth 
he, 

"And  woe,  but  they  cost  me  dear  !  " 
She  took  the  packet,  and  the  smile 
Deepened  down  beneath  the  tear. 

It  deepened  down  till  it  reached  her 
heart, 

And  then  gushed  up  again, 
And  lighted  her  tears  as  the  sudden  sun 
Transfigures  the  summer  rain. 

And  the  first  Leaf,  when  it  was  opened, 
Sang  :  "I  am  Walter  the  page, 

And  the  songs  1  sing  'neath  thy  window 
Are  my  only  heritage." 

And  the  second  Leaf  sang  :  ' '  But  in  the 
land 

That  is  neither  on  earth  or  sea, 
My  lute  and  I  are  lords  of  more 
Than  thrice  this  kingdom's  fee." 

And  the  third  Leaf  sang,  "Be  mine  ! 
"  Be  mine  ! " 

And  ever  it  sang,  "  Be  mine  !" 
Then  sweeter  it  sang  and  ever  sweeter, 

And  said,  "  I  am  thine,  thine,  thine ! " 

At  the  first  Leaf  she  grew  pale  enough, 
At  the  second  she  turned  aside, 

At  the  third,  't  was  as  if  a  lily  flushed 
With  a  rose's  red  heart's  tide. 

"  Good  counsel  gave  the  bird,"  said  she, 

"  I  have  my  hope  thrice  o'er, 
For  they  sing  to  my  very  heart,"  she 
said, 

"And  it  sings  to  them  evermore." 

She  brought  to  him  her  beauty  and 
truth, 

But  and  broad  earldoms  three, 
And  he  made  her  queen  of  the  broader 
lands 

He  held  of  his  lute  in  fee. 


SEA-WEED. 

Not  always  unimpeded  can  I  pray, 
Nor,  pitying  saint,  thine  intercession 
claim ; 

Too  closely  clings  the  burden  of  the  day, 


OF  THE  LYEE. 

And  all  the  mint  and  anise  that  I  pay 
But  swells  my  debt  and  deepens  my 
self- blame. 

Shall  I  less  patience  have  than  Thou, 

who  know 
That  Thou  revisit'st  all  who  wait  for 

thee, 

Nor  only  fill'st  the  unsounded  deeps 
below, 

But  dost  refresh  with  punctual  overflow 
The  rifts  where  unregarded  mosses  be  ? 

The  drooping  sea-weed  hears,  in  night 

abyssed, 

Far  and  more  far  the  wave's  receding 
shocks, 

Nor  doubts,  for  all  the  darkness  and  the 
mist, 

That  the  pale  shepherdess  will  keep  her 
tryst, 

And  shoreward  lead  again  her  foam- 
fleeced  flocks. 

For  the  same  wave  that  rims  the  Carib 
shore 

With  momentary  brede  of  pearl  and 
gold, 

Goes  hurrying  thence  to  gladden  with 
its  roar 

Lorn  weeds  bound  fast  on  rocks  of  Lab- 
rador, 

By  love  divine  on  one  sweet  errand 
rolled. 

And,  though  Thy  healing  waters  far 

withdraw, 
I,  too,  can  wait  and  feed  on  hope  of 

Thee 

And  of  the  dear  recurrence  of  Thy  law, 
Sure  that,  the  parting  grace  my  morning 
saw 

Abides  its  time  to  come  in  search  of  me. 


THE  FINDING  OF  THE  LYRE. 

There  lay  upon  the  ocean's  shore 
What  once  a  tortoise  served  to  cover. 
A  year  and  more,  with  rush  and  roar, 
The  surf  had  rolled  it  over, 
Had  played  with  it,  and  flung  it  by, 
As  wind  and  weather  might  decide  it, 
Then  tossed  it  high  where  sand-drift 
dry 

Cheap  burial  might  provide  it. 


NEW— YEAR'S  EVE. 


1850. — AL  FRESCO. 


339 


It  rested  there  to  bleach  or  tan, 

The  rains  had  soaked,  the  suns  had 

burned  it ; 
With  many  a  ban  the  fisherman 
Had  stumbled  o'er  and  spurned  it ; 
And  there  the  fisher-girl  would  stay, 
Conjecturing  with  her  brother 
How  in  their  play  the  poor  estray 
Might  serve  some  use  or  other. 

So  there  it  lay,  through  wet  and  dry, 
As  empty  as  the  last  new  sonnet, 
Till  by  and  by  came  Mercury, 
And,  having  mused  upon  it, 
"Why,  here,"  cried  he,  "the  thing  of 
things 

In  shape,  material,  and  dimension  ! 
Give  it  but  strings,  and,  lo,  it  sings, 
A  wonderful  invention  !  " 

So  said,  so  done ;  the  chords  he  strained, 
And,  as  his  fingers  o'er  them,  hovered, 
The  shell  disdained  a  soul  had  gained, 
The  lyre  had  been  discovered. 
O  empty  world  that  round  us  lies, 
Dead  shell,  of  soul  and  thought  forsaken, 
Brought  we  but  eyes  like  Mercury's, 
In  thee  what  songs  should  waken  ! 


NEW-YEAR'S  EVE.  1850. 

This  is  the  midnight  of  the  century,  — 
hark ! 

Through  aisle  and  arch  of  Godminster 

have  gone 
Twelve  throbs  that  tolled  the  zenith  of 

the  dark, 

And  mornward  now  the  starry  hands 
move  on ; 

"  Mornward  !  "  the  angelic  watchers  say, 

"  Passed  is  the  sorest  trial ; 

No  plot  of  man  can  stay 

The  hand  upon  the  dial ; 

Night  is  the  dark  stem  of  the  lily  Day." 

If  we,  who  watched  in  valleys  here  below, 
Toward  streaks,  misdeemed  of  morn,  our 

faces  turned 
When  volcan  glares  set  all  the  east 

aglow,  — 

We  are  not  poorer  that  we  wept  and 
yearned ; 

Though  earth  swing  wide  from  God's 
intent, 


And  though  no  man  nor  nation 

Will  move  with  full  consent 

In  heavenly  gravitation, 

Yet  by  one  Sun  is  every  orbit  bent. 


FOR  AN  AUTOGRAPH. 

Though  old  the  thought  and  oft  ex- 
prest, 

'T  is  his  at  last  who  says  it  best,  — 
I  '11  try  my  fortune  with  the  rest. 

Life  is  a  leaf  of  paper  white 
Whereon  each  one  of  us  may  write 
His  word  or  two,  and  then  comes  night. 

"  Lo,  time  and  space  enough,"  we  cry, 
"  To  write  an  epic !  "  so  we  try 
Our  nibs  upon  the  edge,  and  die. 

Muse  not  which  way  the  pen  to  hold, 
Luck  hates  the  slow  and  loves  the  bold, 
Soon  come  the  darkness  and  the  cold. 

Greatly  begin  !  though  thou  have  time 
But  for  a  line,  be  that  sublime,  — 
Not  failure,  but  low  aim,  is  crime. 

Ah,  with  what  lofty  hope  we  came ! 
But  we  forget  it,  dream  of  fame, 
And  scrawl,  as  I  do  here,  a  name. 


AL  FRESCO. 

The  dandelions  and  buttercups 
Gild  all  the  lawn ;  the  drowsy  bee 
Stumbles  among  the  clover-tops, 
And  summer  sweetens  all  but  me : 
Away,  unfruitful  lore  of  books, 
For  whose  vain  idiom  we  reject 
The  soul's  more  native  dialect, 
Aliens  among  the  birds  and  brooks, 
Dull  to  interpret  or  conceive 
What  gospels  lost  the  woods  retrieve ! 
Away,  ye  critics,  city -bred, 
Who  set  man -traps  of  thus  and  so, 
And  in  the  first  man's  footsteps  tread, 
Like  those  who  toil  through  drifted 
snow ! 

Away,  my  poets,  whose  sweet  spell 

Can  make  a  garden  of  a  cell ! 

I  need  ye  not,  for  I  to-day 

Will  make  one  long  sweet  verse  of  play. 


340 


MASACCIO. 


Snap,   chord  of   manhood's  tenser 
strain ! 

To-day  I  will  be  a  boy  again ; 
The  mind's  pursuing  element, 
Like  a  bow  slackened  and  unbent, 
In  some  dark  corner  shall  be  leant. 
The  robin  sings,  as  of  old,  from  the 
limb ! 

The  catbird  croons  in  the  lilac-bush ! 
Through  the  dim  arbor,  himself  more 
dim, 

Silently  hops  the  hermit-thrush, 
The  withered  leaves  keep  dumb  for  him ; 
The  irreverent  buccaneering  bee 
Hath  stormed  and  rifled  the  nunnery 
Of  the  lily,  and  scattered  the  sacred  floor 
With  haste-dropt  gold  from  shrine  to 

door; 
There,  as  of  yore, 
The  rich,  milk-tingeing  buttercup 
Its  tiny  polished  urn  holds  up, 
Filled  with  ripe  summer  to  the  edge, 
The  sun  in  his  own  wine  to  pledge ; 
And  our  tall  elm,  this  hundredth  year 
Doge  of  our  leafy  Venice  here, 
Who,  with  an  annual  ring,  doth  wed 
The  blue  Adriatic  overhead, 
Shadows  with  his  palatial  mass 
The  deep  canals  of  flowing  grass. 

0  unestranged  birds  and  bees ! 
0  face  of  nature  always  true  ! 
0  never-unsympathizing  trees ! 
O  never- rejecting  roof  of  blue, 
Whose  rash  disherison  never  falls 
On  us  unthinking  prodigals, 
Yet  who  convictest  all  our  ill, 
So  grand  and  unappeasable ! 
Methinks  my  heart  from  each  of  these 
Plucks  part  of  childhood  back  again, 
Long  there  imprisoned,  as  the  breeze 
Doth  every  hidden  odor  seize 
Of  wood  and  water,  hill  and  plain  ; 
Once  more  am  I  admitted  peer 
In  the  upper  house  of  Nature  here, 
And  feel  through  all  my  pulses  run 
The  royal  blood  of  breeze  and  sun. 

Upon  these  elm-arched  solitudes 
No  hum  of  neighbor  toil  intrudes ; 
The  only  hammer  that  I  hear 
Is  wielded  by  the  woodpecker, 
The  single  noisy  calling  his 
In  all  our  leaf- hid  Sybaris ; 
The  good  old  time,  close -hidden  here, 
Persists,  a  loyal  cavalier, 


While  Roundheads  prim,  with  point  of 
fox, 

Probe  wainscot-chink  and  empty  box  ; 
Here  no  hoarse-voiced  iconoclast 
Insults  thy  statues,  royal  Past ; 
Myself  too  prone  the  axe  to  wield, 
I  touch  the  silver  side  of  the  shield 
With  lance  reversed,  and  challenge 
peace, 

A  willing  convert  of  the  trees. 

How  chanced  it  that  so  long  I  tost 
A  cable's  length  from  this  rich  coast, 
With  foolish  anchors  hugging  close 
The  beckoning  weeds  and  lazy  ooze, 
Nor  had  the  wit  to  wreck  before 
On  this  enchanted  island's  shore, 
Whither  the  current  of  the  sea, 
With  wiser  drift,  persuaded  me  ? 

0,  might  we  but  of  such  rare  days 
Build  up  the  spirit's  dwelling-place ! 
A  temple  of  so  Parian  stone 
Would  brook  a  marble  god  alone, 
The  statue  of  a  perfect  life, 
Far-shrined   from    earth's  bestaining 
strife. 

Alas  !  though  such  felicity 

In  our  vext  world  here  may  not  be, 

Yet,  as  sometimes  the  peasant's  hut 

Shows  stones  which  old  religion  cut 

With  text  inspired,  or  mystic  sign 

Of  the  Eternal  and  Divine, 

Torn  from  the  consecration  deep 

Of  some  fallen  nunnery's  mossy  sleep, 

So,  from  the  ruins  of  this  day 

Crumbling  in  golden  dust  away, 

The  soul  one  gracious  block  may  draw, 

Carved  with  some  fragment  of  the  law, 

Which,  set  in  life's  uneven  wall, 

Old  benedictions  may  recall, 

And  lure  some  nunlike  thoughts  to  take 

Their  dwelling  here  for  memory's  sake. 


MASACCIO. 

(in  the  brancacci  chapel.) 

He  came  to  Florence  long  ago, 

And  painted  here  these  walls,  that  shone 

For  Raphael  and  for  Angelo, 

With  secrets  deeper  than  his  own, 

Then  shrank  into  the  dark  again, 

And  died,  we  know  not  how  or  when. 

The  shadows  deepened,  and  I  turned 
Half  sadly  from  the  fresco  grand ; 


WITHOUT  AND  WITHIN.  —  GODMINSTEE  CHIMES.  341 


"And  is  this,"  mused  I,  "all  ye  earned, 
High- vaulted  brain  and  cunning  hand, 
That  ye  to  greater  men  could  teach 
The  skill  yourselves  could  never  reach  ?" 

"And  who  were  they,"  I  mused,  "that 
wrought 

Through  pathless  wilds,  with  labor  long, 
The  highways  of  our  daily  thought  ? 
Who  reared  those  towers  of  earliest  song 
That  lift  us  from  the  throng  to  peace 
Remote  in  sunny  silences  ?" 

Out  clanged  the  Ave  Mary  bells, 
And  to  my  heart  this  message  came : 
Each  clamorous  throat  among  them  tells 
What  strong-souled  martyrs  died  in 
flame 

To  make  it  possible  that  thou 
Shouldst  here  with  brother  sinners  bow. 

Thoughts  that  great  hearts  once  broke 
for,  we 

Breathe  cheaply  in  the  common  air ; 
The  dust  we  trample  heedlessly 
Throbbed  once  in  saints  and  heroes  rare. 
Who  perished,  opening  for  their  race 
New  pathways  to  the  commonplace. 

Henceforth,  when  rings  the  health  to 
those 

Who  live  in  story  and  in  song, 
0  nameless  dead,  that  now  repose 
Safe  in  Oblivion's  chambers  strong, 
One  cup  of  recognition  true 
Shall  silently  be  drained  to  you ! 


WITHOUT  AND  WITHIN. 

My  coachman,  in  the  moonlight  there, 
Looks  through  the  side-light  of  the 
door; 

I  hear  him  with  his  brethren  swear, 
As  I  could  do, — but  only  more. 

Flattening  his  nose  against  the  pane, 
He  envies  me  my  brilliant  lot, 

Breathes  on  his  aching  fists  in  vain, 
And  dooms  me  to  a  place  more  hot. 

He  sees  me  in  to  supper  go, 
A  silken  wonder  by  my  side, 

Bare  arms,  bare  shoulders,  and  a  row 
Of  flounces,  for  the  door  too  wide. 


He  thinks  how  happy  is  my  arm 

'Neath  its  white-gloved  and  jewelled 
load ; 

And  wishes  me  some  dreadful  harm, 
Hearing  the  merry  corks  explode. 

Meanwhile  I  inly  curse  the  bore 
Of  hunting  still  the  same  old  coon, 

And  envy  him,  outside  the  door, 
In  golden  quiets  of  the  moon. 

The  winter  wind  is  not  so  cold 

As  the  bright  smile  he  sees  me  win, 

Nor  the  host's  oldest  wine  so  old 
As  our  poor  gabble  sour  and  thin. 

I  envy  him  the  ungyved  prance 

By  which  his  freezing  feet  he  warms, 

And  drag  my  lady's-chains  and  dance 
The  galley-slave  of  dreary  forms. 

0,  could  he  have  my  share  of  din, 
And  I  his  quiet! — past  a  doubt 

'T  would  still  be  one  man  bored  within, 
And  just  another  bored  without. 


GODMINSTER  CHIMES. 

WRITTEN  IN  AID  OF  A  CHIME  OF  BELLS 
FOR  CHRIST  CHURCH,  CAMBRIDGE. 

Godminster  ?    Is  it  Fancy's  play  ? 

I  know  not,  but  the  word 
Sings  in  my  heart,  nor  can  I  say 

Whether 't  was  dreamed  or  heard ; 
Yet  fragrant  in  my  mind  it  clings 

As  blossoms  after  rain, 
And  builds  of  half-remembered  things 

This  vision  in  my  brain. 

Through  aisles  of  long-drawn  centuries 

My  spirit  walks  in  thought, 
And  to  that  symbol  lifts  its  eyes 

Which  God's  own  pity  wrought ; 
From  Calvary  shines  the  altar's  gleam, 

The  Church's  East  is  there, 
The  Ages  one  great  minster  seem, 

That  throbs  with  praise  and  prayer. 

And  all  the  way  from  Calvary  down 

The  carven  pavement  shows 
Their  graves  who  won   the  martyr's 
crown 

And  safe  in  God  repose ; 
The  saints  of  many  a  warring  creed 
Who  now  in  heaven  have  learned 


342 


THE  PARTING  OF  THE  WAYS. 


That  all  paths  to  the  Father  lead 
Where  Self  the  feet  have  spurned. 

And,  as  the  mystic  aisles  I  pace, 

By  aureoled  workmen  built, 
Lives  ending  at  the  Cross  I  trace 

Alike  through  grace  and  guilt ; 
One  Mary  bathes  the  blessed  feet 

With  ointment  from  her  eyes, 
With  spikenard  one,  and  both  are  sweet, 

For  both  are  sacrifice. 

Moravian  hymn  and  Eoman  chant 

In  one  devotion  blend, 
To  speak  the  soul's  eternal  want 

Of  Him,  the  inmost  friend  ; 
One  prayer  soars  cleansed  with  martyr 
fire, 

One  choked  with  sinner's  tears, 
In  heaven  both  meet  in  one  desire, 
And  God  one  music  hears. 

Whilst  thus  I  dream,  the  bells  clash  out 

Upon  the  Sabbath  air, 
Each  seems  a  hostile  faith  to  shout, 

A  selfish  form  of  prayer ; 
My  dream  is  shattered,  yet  who  knows 

But  in  that  heaven  so  near 
These  discords  find  harmonious  close 

In  God's  atoning  ear  ? 

0  chime  of  sweet  Saint  Charity, 

Peal  soon  that  Easter  morn 
When  Christ  for  all  shall  risen  be, 

And  in  all  hearts  new-born  ! 
That  Pentecost  when  utterance  clear 

To  all  men  shall  be  given, 
When  all  shall  say  My  Brother  here, 

And  hear  My  Son  in  heaven  ! 


THE  PARTING  OF  THE  WAYS. 

Who  hath  not  been  a  poet  ?   Who  hath 
not, 

With  life's  new  quiver  full  of  winged 
years, 

Shot  at  a  venture,  and  then,  following 
on, 

Stood  doubtful  at  the  Parting  of  the 
Ways  ? 

There  once  I  stood  in  dream,  and  as  I 
paused, 

Looking  this  way  and  that,  came  forth 
to  me 


The  figure  of  a  woman  veiled,  that  said, 
"My  name  is  Duty,  turn  and  follow 

me  "  ; 

Something  there  was  that  chilled  me  in 

her  voice  ; 
I  felt  Youth's  hand  grow  slack  and  cold 

in  mine, 

As  if  to  be  withdrawn,  and  I  replied  : 
"  0,  leave  the  hot  wild  heart  within  my 
breast  ! 

Duty  comes  soon  enough,  too  soon  comes 
Death  ; 

This  slippery  globe  of  life  whirls  of  itself, 
Hasting  our  youth  away  into  the  dark  ; 
These  senses,  quivering  with  electric 
heats, 

Too  soon  will  show,  like  nests  on  wintry 
boughs 

Obtrusive  emptiness,  too  palpable  wreck, 
Which  whistling  north-winds  line  with 

downy  snow 
Sometimes,  or  fringe  with  foliaged  rime, 

in  vain, 

Thither  the  singing  birds  no  more  re- 
turn." 

Then  glowed  to  me  a  maiden  from  the 
left, 

With  bosom  half  disclosed,  and  naked 
arms 

More  white  and  undulant  than  necks  of 
swans  ; 

And  all  before  her  steps  an  influence  ran 
Warm  as  the  whispering  South  that 

opens  buds 
And  swells  the  laggard  sails  of  Northern 

May. 

"I  am  called  Pleasure,  come  with  me!" 
she  said, 

Then  laughed,  and  shook  out  sunshine 

from  her  hair, 
Not  only  that,  but,  so  it  seemed,  shook 

out 

All  memory  too,  and  all  the  moonlit 

past, 

Old  loves,  old  aspirations,    and  old 
dreams, 

More  beautiful  for  being  old  and  gone. 

go  wre  two  went  together ;  downward 
sloped 

The  path  through  yellow  meads,  or  so  I 
dreamed, 

Yellow  with  sunshine  and  young  green, 
but  I 

Saw  naught  nor  heard,  shut  up  in  one 
close  joy ; 


THE  PARTING 

I  only  felt  the  hand  within  my  own, 
Transmuting  all  my  blood  to  golden  fire, 
Dissolving  all  my  brain  in  throbbing 
mist. 

Suddenly  shrank  the  hand ;  suddenly 
burst 

A  cry  that  split  the  torpor  of  my  brain, 
And  as  the  first  sharp  thrust  of  lightning 
loosens 

From  the  heaped  cloud  its  rain,  loosened 

my  sense  : 
"  Save  me!"  it  thrilled  ;  "0,  hide  me  ! 

there  is  Death  ! 
Death  the  divider,  the  unmerciful, 
That  digs  his  pitfalls  under  Love  and 

Youth 

And  covers   Beauty  up  in  the  cold 
ground ; 

Horrible  Death !  bringer  of  endless  dark  ; 
Let  him  not  see  me  !  hide  me  in  thy 
breast  ! " 

Thereat  I  strove  to  clasp  her,  but  my 
arms 

Met  only  what  slipped  crumbling  down, 
and  fell, 

A  handful  of  gray  ashes,  at  my  feet. 

I  would  have  fled,  I  would  have  followed 
back 

That  pleasant  path  we  came,  but  all  was 
changed  ; 

Rocky  the  way,  abrupt,  and  hard  to  find ; 
Yet  I  toiled  on,  and,  toiling  on,  1 
:  thought, 

"That  way  lies  Youth,  and  Wisdom, 

and  all  Good  ; 
For  only  by  unlearning  "Wisdom  comes 
And    climbing    backward    to  diviner 

Youth  ; 

What  the  world  teaches  profits  to  the 
world, 

What  the  soul  teaches  profits  to  the  soul, 
Which  then  first  stands  erect  with  God- 
ward  face, 

When  she  lets  fall  her  pack  of  withered 
facts, 

The  gleanings  of  the  outward  eye  and 
ear,  # 

And  looks  and  listens  with  her  finer 
sense  ; 

Nor  Truth  nor  Knowledge  cometh  from 
without." 

After  long  weary  days  I  stood  again 
And  waited  at  the  Parting  of  the  Ways ; 
Again  the  figure  of  a  woman  veiled 


OF  THE  WAYS.  343 

Stood  forth  and  beckoned,  and  I  followed 
now : 

Down  to  no  bower  of  roses  led  the 
path, 

But  through  the  streets  of  towns  where 

chattering  Cold 
Hewed  wood  for  fires  whose  glow  was 

owned  and  fenced, 
Where  Nakedness  wove  garments  of 

warm  wool 
Not  for  itself ;  —  or  through  the  fields  it 

led 

Where  Hunger  reaped  the  unattainable 
grain, 

Where  Idleness  enforced  saw  idle  lands, 
Leagues  of  unpeopled  soil,  the  common 
earth, 

Walled  round  with  paper  against  God 
and  Man. 

44 1  cannot  look,"  I  groaned,  "at  only 
these  ; 

The  heart  grows  hardened  with  perpet- 
ual wont, 

And  palters  with  a  feigned  necessity, 

Bargaining  with  itself  to  be  content ; 

Let  me  behold  tjiy  face." 

The  Form  replied : 

' 1  Men  follow  Duty,  never  overtake ; 

Duty  nor  lifts  her  veil  nor  looks  behind." 

But,  as  she  spake,  a  loosened  lock  of 
hair 

Slipped  from  beneath  her  hood,  and  I, 

who  looked 
To  see  it  gray  and  thin,  saw  amplest 

gold ; 

Not  that  dull  metal  dug  from  sordid 
earth, 

But  such  as  the  retiring  sunset  flood 
Leaves  heaped  on  bays  and  capes  of 

island  cloud. 
"  0  Guide  divine,"  I  prayed,  "  although 

not  yet 

I  may  repair  the  virtue  which  I  feel 
Gone  out  at  touch  of  untuned  things 
and  foul 

With  draughts  of  Beauty,  yet  declare 
how  soon  ! " 

"  Faithless  and  faint  of  heart,"  the  voice 
returned, 

"  Thou  see'st  no  beauty  save  thou  make 
it  first ; 

Man,  Woman,  Nature,  each  is  but  a 
glass 

Where  the  soul  sees  the  image  of  her- 
.  .  self> 

Visible  echoes,  offsprings  of  herself. 


344 


ALADDIN.  —  AN  INVITATION. 


But,  since  thou  rieed'st  assurance  of  how 
soon, 

Wait  till  that  angel  comes  who  opens 
all, 

The  reconciler,  he  who  lifts  the  veil, 
The  reuniter,  the  rest-bringer^-Deatk." 

I  waited,  and  methought  he  came ;  but 
how, 

Or  in  what  shape,  I  doubted,  for  no 
sign, 

By  touch  or  mark,  he  gave  me  as  he 
passed  : 

Only  1  knew  a  lily  that  I  held 
Snapt  short  below  the  head  and  shriv- 
elled up  ; 

Then  turned  my  Guide  and  looked  at 

me  unveiled, 
And  I  beheld  no  face  of  matron  stern, 
But  that  enchantment  I  had  followed 

erst, 

Only  more  fair,  more  clear  to  eye  and 
brain, 

Heightened  and  chastened  by  a  house- 
hold charm  ; 

She  smiled,  and  "  "Which  is  fairer,"  said 
her  eyes, 

"  The  hag's  unreal  Florimel  or  mine  ?" 


ALADDIN. 

When  I  was  a  beggarly  boy, 

And  lived  in  a  cellar  damp, 
I  had  not  a  friend  nor  a  toy, 

But  I  had  Aladdin's  lamp  ; 
When  I  could  not  sleep  for  cold, 

I  had  fire  enough  in  my  brain, 
And  builded,  with  roofs  of  gold, 

My  beautiful  castles  in  Spain  ! 

Since  then  I  have  toiled  day  and  night, 

I  have  money  and  power  good  store, 
But  I 'd  give  all  my  lamps  of  silver 
bright, 

For  the  one  that  is  mine  no  more  ; 
Take,  Fortune,  whatever  you  choose, 

You  gave,  and  may  snatch  again  ; 
I  have  nothing 't  would  pain  me  to  lose, 

For  I  own  no  more  castles  in  Spain  ! 


AN  INVITATION. 

Nine  years  have  slipt  like  hour-glass 
sand 

From  life's  still-emptying  globe  away, 


Since  last,  dear  friend,  I  clasped  your 
hand, 

And  stood  upon  the  impoverished  land, 
Watching  the  steamer  down  the  bay. 

I  held  the  token  which  you  gave, 
While  slowly  the  smoke-pennon  curled 
O'er  the  vague  rim  'tween  sky  and  wave, 
And  shut  the  distance  like  a  grave, 
Leaving  me  in  the  colder  world. 

The  old  worn  world  of  hurry  and  heat, 
The  young,  fresh  world  of  thought  and 

scope, 

While  you,  where  beckoning  billows 
fleet 

Climb  far  sky-beaches  still  and  sweet, 
Sank  wavering  down  the  ocean-slope. 

You  sought  the  new  world  in  the  old, 
I  found  the  old  world  in  the  new, 
All  that  our  human  hearts  can  hold, 
The  inward  world  of  deathless  mould, 
The  same  that  Father  Adam  knew. 

He  needs  no  ship  to  cross  the  tide, 
Who,  in  the  lives  about  him,  sees 
Fair  window-prospects  opening  wide 
O'er  history's  fields  on  every  side, 
To  Ind  and  Egypt,  Rome  and  Greece. 

Whatever  moulds  of  various  brain 
E'er  shaped  the  world  to  weal  or  woe, 
Whatever  empires'  wax  and  wane, 
To  him  that  hath  not  eyes  in  vain, 
Our  village-microcosm  can  show. 

Come  back  our  ancient  walks  to  tread, 
Dear  haunts  of  lost  or  scattered  friends, 
Old  Harvard's  scholar-factories  red, 
Where  song  and  smoke  and  laughter 

sped 

The  nights  to  proctor-haunted  ends. 

Constant  are  all  our  former  loves, 
Unchanged  the  icehouse-girdled  pond, 
Its  hemlock  glooms,  its  shadowy  coves, 
Where  floats  the  coot  and  never  moves, 
Its  slopes  of  long-tamed  green  beyond. 

Our  old  familiars  are  not  laid, 

Though  snapt  our  wands  and  sunk  our 

books ; 

They  beckon,  not  to  be  gainsaid, 
Where,  round  broad  meads  that  mowers 
wade, 

The  Charles  his  steel-blue  sickle  crooks. 


THE  NOMADES. 


345 


Where,  as  the  cloudbergs  eastward  blow, 
From  glow  to  gloom  the  hillsides  shift 
Their  plumps  of  orchard-trees  arow, 
Their  lakes  of  rye  that  wave  and  flow, 
Their  snowy  whiteweed's  summer  drift. 

There  have  we  watched  the  West  unfurl 
A  cloud  Byzantium  newly  born, 
With  flickering  spires  and  domes  of 
pearl, 

And  vapory  surfs  that  crowd  and  curl 
Into  the  sunset's  Golden  Horn. 

There,  as  the  flaming  Occident 
Burned  slowly  down  to  ashes  gray, 
Night  pitched  o'erhead  her  silent  tent, 
And  glimmering  gold  fromHespersprent 
Upon  the  darkened  river  lay, 

Where  a  twin  sky  but  just  before 
Deepened,  and  double  swallows  skimmed, 
And,  from  a  visionary  shore, 
Hung  visioned  trees,  that  more  and 
more 

Grew  dusk  as  those  above  were  dimmed. 

Then  eastward  saw  we  slowly  grow 
Clear-edged  the  lines  of  roof  and  spire, 
While  great  elm-masses  blacken  slow, 
And  linden-ricks  their  round  heads 
show 

Against  a  flush,  of  widening  fire. 

Doubtful  at  first  and  far  away, 
The  moon-flood  creeps  more  wide  and 
wide  ; 

Up  a  ridged  beach,  of  cloudy  gray, 
Curved  round  the  east  as  round  a  bay, 
It  slips  and  spreads  its  gradual  tide. 

Then  suddenly,  in  lurid  mood, 
The  moon  looms  large  o'er  town  and 
field 

As  upon  Adam,  red  like  blood, 
'Tween  him  and  Eden's  happy  wood, 
Glared  the  commissioned  angel's  shield. 

Or  let  us  seek  the  seaside,  there 
To  wander  idly  as  we  list, 
Whether,  on  rocky  headlands  bare, 
Sharp  cedar-horns,  like  breakers,  tear 
The  trailing  fringes  of  gray  mist, 

Or  whether,  under  skies  full  flown, 
The  brightening  surfs,  with  foamy  din, 
Their  breeze-caught  forelocks  backward 
blown, 


Against  the  beach's  yellow  zone, 
Curl  slow,  and  plunge  forever  in. 

And,  as  we  watch  those  canvas  towers 
That  lean  along  the  horizon's  rim, 
''Sail  on,"  I'll  say;  "may  sunniest 
hours 

Convoy  you  from  this  land  of  ours, 
Since  from  my  side  you  bear  not  him  !  " 

For  years  thrice  three,  wise  Horace  said, 
A  poem  rare  let  silence  bind  ; 
And  love  may  ripen  in  the  shade, 
Like  ours,  for  nine  long  seasons  laid 
In  deepest  arches  of  the  mind. 

Come  back  !    Not  ours  the  Old  World's 
good, 

The  Old  World's  ill,  thank  God,  not 
ours  ; 

But  here,  far  better  understood, 
The  days  enforce  our  native  mood, 
And  challenge  all  our  manlier  powers. 

Kindlier  to  me  the  place  of  birth 
That  first  my  tottering  footsteps  trod  ; 
There  may  be  fairer  spots  of  earth, 
But  all  their  glories  are  not  worth 
The  virtue  of  the  native  sod. 

Thence  climbs  an  influence  more  benign 
Through  pulse  and  nerve,  through  heart 

and  brain  ; 
Sacred  to  me  those  fibres  fine 
That  first  clasped  earth.    0,  ne'er  be 

mine 

The  alien  sun  and  alien  rain ! 

These  nourish  not  like  homelier  glows 
Or  waterings  of  familiar  skies, 
And  nature  fairer  blooms  bestows 
On  the  heaped  hush  of  wintry  snows, 
In  pastures  dear  to  childhood's  eyes, 

Than  where  Italian  earth  receives 
The  partial  sunshine's  ampler  boons, 
Where  vines  carve  friezes  'neath  the 
eaves, 

And,  in  dark  firmaments  of  leaves, 
The  orange  lifts  its  golden  moons. 


THE  NOMADES. 

What  Nature  makes  in  any  mood 
To  me  is  warranted  for  good, 
Though  long  before  I  learned  to  see 
She  did  not  set  us  moral  theses, 


346 


SELF-STUDY. 


And  scorned  to  have  her  sweet  caprices 
Strait-waistcoated  in  you  or  me. 

I,  who  take  root  and  firmly  cling, 
Thought  fixedness  the  only  thing ; 
Why  Nature  made  the  butterflies, 
(Those  dreams  of  wings  that  float  and 
hover 

At  noon  the  slumberous  poppies  over,) 
Was  something  hidden  from  mine  eyes, 

Till  once,  upon  a  rock's  brown  bosom, 
Bright  as  a  thorny  cactus-blossom, 
I  saw  a  butterfly  at  rest ; 
Then  first  of  both  I  felt  the  beauty ; 
The  airy  whim,  the  grim-set  duty, 
Each  from  the  other  took  its  best. 

Clearer  it  grew  than  winter  sky 
That  Nature  still  had  reasons  why ; 
And,  shifting  sudden  as  a  breeze, 
My  fancy  found  no  satisfaction, 
No  antithetic  sweet  attraction, 
So  great  as  in  the  Nomades. 

Scythians,  with  Nature  not  at  strife, 
Light  Arabs  of  our  complex  life, 
They  build  no  houses,  plant  no  mills 
To  utilize  Time's  sliding  river, 
Content  that  it  flow  waste  forever, 
If  they,  like  it,  may  have  their  wills. 

An  hour  they  pitch  their  shifting  tents 
In  thoughts,  in  feelings,  and  events ; 
Beneath  the  palm-trees,  on  the  grass, 
They  sing,  they  dance,  make  love,  and 
chatter, 

Vex  the  grim  temples  with  their  clatter, 
And  make  Truth's  fount  their  looking- 
glass. 

A  picnic  life ;  from  love  to  love, 
From  faith  to  faith  they  lightly  move, 
And  yet,  hard-eyed  philosopher, 
The  flightiest  maid  that  ever  hovered 
To  me  your  thought-webs  fine  discov- 
ered, 

No  lens  to  see  them  through  like  her. 

So  witchingly  her  finger-tips 
To  Wisdom,  as  away  she  trips, 
She  kisses,  waves  such  sweet  farewells 
To  Dut)7",  as  she  laughs  "  To-morrow !  " 
That  both  from  that  mad  contrast  bor- 
row 

A  perfectness  found  nowhere  else. 


The  beach-bird  on  its  pearly  verge 
Follows  and  flies  the  whispering  surge, 
While,  in  his  tent,  the  rock-stayed  shell 
Awaits  th'e  flood's  star-timed  vibrations, 
And  both,  the  flutter  and  the  patience, 
The  sauntering  poet  loves  them  well. 

Fulfil  so  much  of  God's  decree 
As  works  its  problem  out  in  thee, 
Nor  dream  that  in  thy  breast  alone 
The  conscience  of  the  changeful  seasons, 
The  Will  that  in  the  planets  reasons 
With  space- wide  logic,  has  its  throne. 

Thy  virtue  makes  not  vice  of  mine, 
Unlike,  but  none  the  less  divine ;  ' 
Thy  toil  adorns,  not  chides,  my  play ; 
Nature  of  sameness  is  so  chary, 
With  such  wild  whim  the  freakish  fairy 
Picks  presents  for  the  christening-day. 


SELF-STUDY. 

A  presence  both  by  night  and  day, 
That  made  my  life  seem  just  begun, 
Yet  scarce  a  presence,  rather  say 
The  warning  aureole  of  one. 

And  yet  I  felt  it  everywhere ; 
Walked  I  the  woodland's  aisles  along, 
It  seemed  to  brush  me  with  its  hair ; 
Bathed  I,  I  heard  a  mermaid's  song. 

How  sweet  it  was  !    A  buttercup 
Could  hold  for  me  a  day's  delight, 
A  bird  could  lift  my  fancy  up 
To  ether  free  from  cloud  or  blight. 

Who  was  the  nymph  ?    Nay,  I  will  see, 
Methought,  and  I  will  know  her  near ; 
If  such,  divined,  her  charm  can  be, 
Seen  and  possessed,  how  triply  dear ! 

So  every  magic  art  I  tried, 
And  spells  as  numberless  as  sand, 
Until,  one  evening,  by  my  side 
I  saw  her  glowing  fulness  stand. 

I  turned  to  clasp  her,  but  "  Farewell," 
Parting  she  sighed,  "we  meet  no  more ; 
Not  by  my  hand  the  curtain  fell 
That  leaves  you  conscious,  wise,  and 
poor.  * 

"  Since  you  have  found  me  out,  I  go; 
Another  lover  I  must  find, 
Content  his  happiness  to  know, 
Nor  strive  its  secret  to  unwind." 


PICTURES  FROM  APPLEDORE. 


347 


PICTURES  FROM  APPLEDORE. 
I. 

A  heap  of  bare  and  splintery  crags 
Tumbled  about  by  lightning  and  frost, 
With  rifts  and  chasms  and  storm - 

bleached  jags, 
That  wait  and  growl  for  a  ship  to  be 

lost; 

No  island,  but  rather  the  skeleton 
Of  a  wrecked  and  vengeance-smitten 
one, 

Where,  seons  ago,  with  half -shut  eye, 
The  sluggish  saurian  crawled  to  die, 
Gasping  under  titanic  ferns ; 
Ribs  of  rock  that  seaward  jut, 
Granite  shoulders  and  boulders  and 
snags, 

Round  which,  though  the  winds  in 

heaven  be  shut, 
The  nightmared  ocean  murmurs  and 

yearns, 

Welters,  and  swashes,  and  tosses,  and 
turns, 

And  the  dreary  black  sea- weed  lolls  and 
wags ; 

Only  rock  from  shore  to  shore, 
Only  a  moan  through  the  bleak  clefts 
blown, 

With  sobs  in  the  rifts  where  the  coarse 

kelp  shifts, 
Falling  and  lifting,  tossing  and  drifting, 
And  under  all  a  deep,  dull  roar, 
Dying  and  swelling,  forevermore,  — 
Rock  and  moan  and  roar  alone, 
And  the  dread  of  some  nameless  thing 

unknown, 
These  make  Appledore. 

These  make  Appledore  by  night : 
Then  there  are  monsters  left  and  right ; 
Every  rock  is  a  different  monster ; 
All  you  have  read  of,  fancied,  dreamed, 
When  you  waked  at  night  because  you 

screamed, 
There  they  lie  for  half  a  mile, 
Jumbled  together  in  a  pile, 
And  (though  you  know  they  never  once 

stir), 

If  you  look  long,  they  seem  to  be 
moving 

Just  as  plainly  as  plain  can  be, 
Crushing  and  crowding,  wading  and 

shoving 
Out  into  the  awful  sea, 
Where  you  can  hear  them  snort  and 

spout 


With  pauses  between,  as  if  they  were 
listening, 

Then  tumult  anon  when  the  surf  breaks 
glistening 

In  the  blackness  where  they  wallow 
about. 

II. 

All  this  you  would  scarcely  comprehend, 
Should  you  see  the  isle  on  a  sunny  day ; 
Then  it  is  simple  enough  in  its  way,  — 
Two  rocky  bulges,  one  at  each  end, 
With  a  smaller  bulge  and  a  hollow  be- 
tween ; 

Patches  of  whortleberry  and  bay ; 
Accidents  of  open  green, 
Sprinkled  with  loose  slabs  square  and 
gray, 

Like  graveyards  for  ages  deserted ;  a  few 
Unsocial  thistles  ;  an  elder  or  two, 
Foamed  over  with  blossoms  white  as 
spray ; 

And  on  the  whole  island  never  a  tree 
Save  a  score  of  sumachs,  high  as  your 
knee, 

That  crouch  in  hollows  where  they  may, 
(The  cellars  where  once  stood  a  village, 
men  say,) 

Huddling  for  warmth,  and  never  grew 
Tall  enough  for  a  peep  at  the  sea ; 
A  general  dazzle  of  open  blue ; 
A  breeze  always  blowing  and  playing 
rat-tat 

With  the  bow  of  the  ribbon  round  your 
hat ; 

A  score  of  sheep  that  do  nothing  but 
stare 

Up  or  down  at  you  everywhere ; 
Three  or  four  cattle  that  chew  the  cud 
Lying  about  in  a  listless  despair ; 
A  medrick  that  makes  you  look  over- 
head 

With  short,  sharp  scream,  as  he  sights 
his  prey, 

And,  dropping  straight  and  swift  as 
lead, 

Splits  the  water  with  sudden  thud ; — 
This  is  Appledore  by  day. 

A  common  island,  you  will  say ; 
But  stay  a  moment :  only  climb 
Up  to  the  highest  rock  of  the  isle, 
Stand  there  alone  for  a  little  while, 
And  with  gentle  approaches  it  grows 

sublime, 
Dilating  slowly  as  you  win 
A  sense  from  the  silence  to  take  it  in. 


348 


PICTURES  FROM  APPLEDORE. 


So  wide  the  loneness,  so  lucid  the  air, 
The  granite  beneath  you  so  savagely 
bare, 

You  well  might  think  you  were  looking 
down 

From  some    sky-silenced  mountain's 
crown, 

Whose  far-down  pines  are  wont  to  tear 
Locks  of  wool  from  the  topmost  cloud. 
Only  be  sure  you  go  alone, 
For  Grandeur  is  inaccessibly  proud, 
And  never  yet  has  backward  thrown 
Her  veil  to  feed  the  stare  of  a  crowd ; 
To  more  than  one  was  never  shown 
That  awful  front,  nor  is  it  fit 
That  she,  Cothurnus-shod,  stand  bowed 
Until  the  self-approving  pit 
Enjoy  the  gust  of  its  own  wit 
In  babbling  plaudits  cheaply  loud  ; 
She  hides  her  mountains  and  her  sea 
From  the  harriers  of  scenery, 
Who  hunt  down  sunsets,  and  huddle 
and  bay, 

Mouthing  and  mumbling  the  dying  day. 

Trust  me,  't  is  something  to  be  cast 
Face  to  face  with  one's  Self  at  last, 
To  be  taken  out  of  the  fuss  and  strife, 
The  endless  clatter  of  plate  and  knife, 
The  bore  of  books  and  the  bores  of  the 
street, 

From  the  singular  mess  we  agree  to  call 
Life, 

Where  that  is  best  which  the  most  fools 
vote  is, 

And  to  be  set  down  on  one's  own  two 
feet 

So  nigh  to  the  great  warm  heart  of  God, 
You  almost  seem  to  feel  it  beat 
Down  from  the  sunshine  and  up  from 
the  sod; 

To  be  compelled,  as  it  were,  to  notice 
All  the  beautiful  changes  and  chances 
Through  which  the  landscape  flits  and 
glances, 

And  to  see  how  the  face  of  common  day 
Is  written  all  over  with  tender  histories, 
When  you  study  it  that  intenser  way 
In  which  a  lover  looks  at  his  mistress. 

Till  now  you  dreamed  not  what  could 
be  done 

With  a  bit  of  rock  and  a  ray  of  sun ; 
But  look,  how  fade  the  lights  and  shades 
Of  keen  bare  edge  and  crevice  deep  ! 
How  doubtfully  it  fades  and  fades, 
And  glows  again,  yon  craggy  steep, 


O'er  which,  through  color's  dreamiest 

grades, 

The  yellow  sunbeams  pause  and  creep ! 
Now  pink  it  blooms,  now  glimmers  gray, 
Now  shadows  to  a  filmy  blue, 
Tries  one,  tries  all,  and  will  not  stay, 
But  flits  from  opal  hue  to  hue, 
And  runs  through  every  tenderest  range 
Of  change  that  seems  not  to  be  change, 
So  rare  the  sweep,  so  nice  the  art, 
That  lays  no  stress  on  any  part, 
But  shifts  and  lingers  and  persuades ; 
So  soft  that  sun-brush  in  the  west, 
That  asks  no  costlier  pigments'  aids, 
But  mingling  knobs,  flaws,  angles,  dints, 
Indifferent  of  worst  or  best, 
Enchants  the  cliffs  with  wraiths  and 
hints 

And  gracious  preludings  of  tints, 
Where  all  seems  fixed,  yet  all  evades, 
And  indefinably  pervades 
Perpetual  movement  with  perpetual  rest ! 

ill. 

Away  northeast  is  Boone  Island  light ; 
You  might  mistake  it  for  a  ship, 
Only  it  stands  too  plumb  upright, 
And  like  the  others  does  not  slip 
Behind  the  sea's  unsteady  brink ; 
Though,  if  a  cloud-shade  chance  to  dip 
Upon  it  a  moment,  't  will  suddenly  sink, 
Levelled  and  lost  in  the  darkened  main, 
Till  the  sun  builds  it  suddenly  up  again, 
As  if  with  a  rub  of  Aladdin's  lamp. 
On  the  mainland  you  see  a  misty  camp 
Of  mountains  pitched  tumultuously : 
That  one  looming  so  long  and  large 
Is  Saddleback,  and  that  point  you  see 
Over  yon  low  and  rounded  marge, 
Like  the  boss  of  a  sleeping  giant's  targe 
Laid  over  his  breast,  is  Ossipee ; 
That  shadow  there  may  be  Kearsarge ; 
That  must  be  Great  Haystack;  I  love 

these  names, 
Wherewith  the  lonely  farmer  tames 
Nature  to  mute  companionship 
With  his  own  mind's  domestic  mood, 
And  strives  the  surly  world  to  clip 
In  the  arms  of  familiar  habitude. 
'T  is  well  he  could  not  contrive  to  make 
A  Saxon  of  Agamenticus  : 
He  glowers  there  to  the  north  of  us, 
Wrapt  in  his  blanket  of  blue  haze, 
Unconvertibly  savage,  and   scorns  to 

take 

The  white  man's  baptism  or  his  ways. 


PICTURES  FROM  APPLEDORE. 


349 


Him  first  on  shore  the  coaster  divines 
Through  the  early  gray,  and  sees  him 
shake 

The  morning  mist  from  his  scalp-lock 
of  pines ; 

Him  first  the  skipper  makes  out  in  the 
west, 

Ere  the  earliest  sunstreak  shoots  trem- 
ulous, 

Plashing  with  orange  the  palpitant  lines 
Of  mutable  billow,  crest  after  crest, 
And  murmurs  Agamenticus! 
As  if  it  were  the  name  of  a  saint. 
But  is  that  a  mountain  playing  cloud, 
Or  a  cloud  playing  mountain,  just  there, 
so  faint  ? 

Look  along  over  the  low  right  shoulder 
Of  Agamenticus  into  that  crowd 
Of  brassy  thunderheads  behind  it ; 
Now  you  have  caught  it,  but,  ere  you 
are  older 

By  half  an  hour,  you  will  lose  it  and 
find  it 

A  score  of  times  ;  while  you  look  't  is 
gone, 

And,  just  as  you  've  given  it  up,  anon 
It  is  there  again,  till  your  weary  eyes 
Fancy  they  see  it  waver  and  rise, 
With  its  brother  clouds;  it  is  Agio- 
chook, 

There  if  you  seek  not,  and  gone  if  you 
look, 

Ninety  miles  off  as  the  eagle  flies. 

But  mountains  make  not  all  the  shore 
The  mainland  shows  to  Appledore  ; 
Eight  miles  the  heaving  water  spreads 
To  a  long  low  coast  with  beaches  and 
heads 

That  run  through  unimagined  mazes, 
As  the  lights  and  shades  and  magical 
hazes 

Put  them  away  or  bring  them  near, 
Shimmering,  sketched  out  for  thirty 
miles 

Between  two   capes  that  waver  like 
threads. 

And  sink  in  the  ocean,  and  reappear, 
Crumbled  and  melted  to  little  isles, 
With  filmy  trees,  that  seem  the  mere 
Half-fancies  of  drowsy  atmosphere; 
And  see  the  beach  there,  where  it  is 
Flat  as  a  threshing-floor,  beaten  and 
packed 

With  the  flashing  flails  of  weariless 
seas, 

How  it  lifts  and  looms  to  a  precipice, 


O'er  whose  square  front,  a  dream,  no 
more, 

The  steepened  sand-stripes  seem  to  pour, 
A  murmurless  vision  of  cataract ; 
You  almost  fancy  you  hear  a  roar, 
Fitful  and  faint  from  the  distance  wan- 
dering ; 

But 't  is  only  the  blind  old  ocean  maun- 
dering, 

Raking  the  shingle  to  and  fro, 
Aimlessly  clutching  and  letting  go 
The  kelp-haired  sedges  of  Appledore, 
Slipping  down  with  a  sleepy  forgetting, 
And  anon  his  ponderous  shoulder  setting, 
With  a  deep,  hoarse  pant  against  Apple- 
dore. 

IV. 

Eastward  as  far  as  the  eye  can  see, 
Still  eastward,  eastward,  endlessly, 
The  sparkle  and  tremor  of  purple  sea 
That  rises  before  you,  a  flickering  hill, 
On  and  on  to  the  shut  of  the  sky, 
And  beyond,  you  fancy  it  sloping  until 
The  same  multitudinous  throb  and  thrill 
That  vibrate  under  your  dizzy  eye 
In  ripples  of  orange  and  pink  are  sent 
Where  the  poppied  sails  doze  on  the 
yard, 

And  the  clumsy  junk  and  proa  lie 
Sunk  deep  with  precious  woods  and 
nard, 

Mid  the  palmy  isles  of  the  Orient. 
Those  leaning  towers  of  clouded  white 
On  the  farthest  brink  of  doubtful  ocean, 
That  shorten  and  shorten  out  of  sight, 
Yet  seem  on  the  selfsame  spot  to  stay, 
Receding  with  a  motionless  motion, 
Fading  to  dubious  films  of  gray, 
Lost,    dimly    found,    then  vanished 
wholly, 

Will  rise  again,  the  great  world  under, 
First  films,  then  towers,  then  high- 
heaped  clouds, 
Whose  n earing  outlines  sharpen  slowly 
Into  tall  ships  with  cobweb  shrouds, 
That  fill  long  Mongol  eyes  with  wonder, 
Crushing  the  violet  w7ave  to  spray 
Past  some  low  headland  of  Cathay ;  — 
What  was  that  sigh  which  seemed  so 
near, 

Chilling  your  fancy  to  the  core  ? 
'T  is  only  the  sad  old  sea  you  hear, 
That  seems  to  seek  forevermore 
Something  it  cannot  find,  and  so, 
Sighing,  seeks  on,  and  tells  its  woe 
To  the  pitiless  breakers  of  Appledore. 


350 


PICTURES  FROM  APPLEDORE. 


v. 

How  looks  Appledore  in  a  storm  ? 
I  have  seen  it  when  its  crags  seemed 
frantic, 

Butting  against  the  mad  Atlantic, 
When  surge  on  surge  would  heap  enorme, 

Cliffs  of  emerald  topped  with  snow, 

That  lifted  and  lifted,  and  then  let  go 
A  great  white  avalanche  of  thunder, 

A  grinding,  blinding,  deafening  ire 
Monadnock  might  have  trembled  under ; 

And  the  island,  whose  rock-roots  pierce 
below 

To  where  they  are  warmed  with  the 

central  fire, 
You  could  feel  its  granite  fibres  racked, 
As  it  seemed  to  plunge  with  a  shudder 

and  thrill 
Right  at  the  breast  of  the  swooping 

hill, 

And  to  rise  again  snorting  a  cataract 
Of  rage-froth  from  every  cranny  and 
ledge, 

"While  the  sea  drew  its  breath  in  hoarse 
and  deep, 

And  the  next  vast  breaker  curled  its 
edge, 

Gathering  itself  for  a  mightier  leap. 

North,  east,  and  south  there  are  reefs 
and  breakers 
You  would  never  dream  of  in  smooth 
weather, 

That  toss  and  gore  the  sea  for  acres, 
Bellowing  and  gnashing  and  snarling 
together  ; 

Look  northward,  where  Duck  Island  lies, 
And  over  its  crown  you  will  see  arise, 
Against  a  background  of  slaty  skies, 
A  row  of  pillars  still  and  white, 
That  glimmer,  and  then  are  out  of 
sight, 

As  if  the  moon  should  suddenly  kiss, 
While  you  crossed  the  gusty  desert  by 
night, 

The  long  colonnades  of  Persepolis  ; 
Look  southward  for  White  Island  light, 
The  lantern  stands  ninety  feet  o'er  the 
tide  ; 

There  is  first  a  half-mile  of  tumult  and 
fight, 

Of  dash  and  roar  and  tumble  anc[  fright, 
And  surging  bewilderment  wild  and 
wide, 

Where  the  breakers  struggle  left  and 
right, 


Then  a  mile  or  more  of  rushing  sea, 
And  then  the  lighthouse  slim  and  lone  ; 
And  whenever  the  weight  of  ocean  is 
thrown 

Full  and  fair  on  White  Island  head, 
A  great  mist-jotun  you  will  see 
Lifting  himself  up  silently 
High  and  huge  o'er  the  lighthouse  top, 
With  hands  of  wavering  spray  outspread, 
Groping  after  the  little  tower, 
That  seems  to  shrink  and  shorten  and 
cower, 

Till  the  monster's  arms  of  a  sudden  drop, 
And  silently  and  fruitlessly 
He  sinks  again  into  the  sea. 

You,  meanwhile,  where  drenched  you 
stand, 

Awaken  once  more  to  the  rush  and 
roar, 

And  on  the  rock-point  tighten  your 
hand, 

As  you  turn  and  see  a  valley  deep, 

That  was  not  there  a  moment  before, 
Suck  rattling  down  between  you  and  a 
heap 

Of  toppling  billow,  whose  instant  fall 
Must  sink  the  whole  island  once  for 
all, 

Or  watch  the  silenter,  stealthier  seas 
Feeling  their  way  to  you  more  and 
more  ; 

If  they  once  should  clutch  you  high  as 

the  knees, 
They  would  whirl  you  down  like  a  sprig 

of  kelp, 

Beyond  all  reach  of  hope  or  help  ;  — 
And  such  in  a  storm  is  Appledore. 

VI. 

'T  is  the  sight  of  a  lifetime  to  behold 
The  great  shorn  sun  as  you  see  it  now, 
Across  eight  miles  of  undulant  gold 
That  widens  landward,  weltered  and 
rolled, 

With  freaks  of  shadow  and  crimson 
stains  ; 

To  see  the  solid  mountain  brow 
As  it  notches  the  disk,  and  gains  and 
gains 

Until  there  comes,  you  scarce  know  when, 
A  tremble  of  fire  o'er  the  parted  lips 
Of  cloud  and  mountain,  which  vanishes  ; 
then 

From  the  body  of  day  the  sun-soul 
slips 


THE  WIND-HARP. 


351 


And  the  face  of  earth  darkens ;  but  now 

the  strips 
Of  western  vapor,  straight  and  thin, 
From  which  the  horizon's  swervings  win 
A  grace  of  contrast,  take  fire  and  burn 
Like  splinters  of  touchwood,  whose 

edges  a  mould 
Of  ashes  o'erfeathers  ;  northward  turn 
For  an  instant,  and  let  your  eye  grow 

cold 

On  Agamenticus,  and  when  once  more 
You  look,  'tis  as  if  the  land-breeze, 
growing, 

From  the  smouldering  brands  the  film 

were  blowing, 
And  brightening  them  down  to  the  very 

core  ; 

Yet  they  momently  cool  and  dampen 

„  and  deaden, 
The  crimson  turns  golden,  the  gold  turns 
leaden, 

Hardening  into  one  black  bar 
O'er  which,  from  the  hollow  heaven  afar, 
Shoots  a  splinter  of  light  like  diamond, 
Half  seen,  half  fancied ;  by  and  by 
Beyond  whatever  is  most  beyond 
In  the  uttermost  waste  of  desert  sky, 
Grows  a  star  ; 

And  over  it,  visible  spirit  of  dew,  — 
Ah,  stir  not,  speak  not,   hold  your 
breath, 

Or  surely  the  miracle  vanisheth,  — 
The  new  moon,  tranced  in  unspeakable 
blue ! 

No  frail  illusion  ;  this  were  true, 
Rather,  to  call  it  the  canoe 
Hollowed  out  of  a  single  pearl, 
That  floats  us  from  the  Present's  whirl 
Back  to  those  beings  which  were  ours, 
When  wishes  were  winged  things  like 
powers ! 

Call  it  not  light,  that  mystery  tender, 

Which  broods  upon  the  brooding  ocean, 

That  flush  of  ecstasied  surrender 

To  indefinable  emotion, 

That  glory,  mellower  than  a  mist 

Of  pearl  dissolved  with  amethyst, 

Which  rims  Square  Rock,  like  what 

they  paint 
Of  mitigated  heavenly  splendor 
Round  the  stern  forehead  of  a  Saint ! 

No  more  a  vision,  reddened,  largened, 
The  moon  dips  toward  her  mountain  nest, 
And,  fringing  it  with  palest  argent, 
Slow  sheathes  herself  behind  the  mar- 
gent 


Of  that  long  cloud-bar  in  the  West, 
Whose  nether  edge,  erelong,  you  see 
The  silvery  chrism  in  turn  anoint, 
And  then  the  tiniest  rosy  point 
Touched  doubtfully  and  timidly 
Into  the  dark  blue's  chilly  strip, 
As  some  mute,  wondering  thing  below, 
Awakened  by  the  thrilling  glow, 
Might,  looking  up,  see  Dian  dip 
One  lucent  foot's  delaying  tip 
In  Latmian  fountains  long  ago. 

Knew  you  what  silence  was  before  ? 
Here  is  no  startle  of  dreaming  bird 
That  sings  in  his  sleep,  or  strives  to 

.  sing; 

Here  is  no  sough  of  branches  stirred, 
Nor  noise  of  any  living  thing, 
Such  as  one  hears  by  night  on  shore ; 
Only,  now  and  then,  a  sigh, 
With  fickle  intervals  between, 
Sometimes  far,  and  sometimes  nigh, 
Such  as  Andromeda  might  have  heard, 
And  fancied  the  huge  sea-beast  unseen 
Turning  in  sleep ;  it  is  the  sea 
That  welters  and  wavers  uneasily 
Round  the  lonely  reefs  of  Appledore. 


THE  WIND-HARP. 

I  treasure  in  secret  some  long,  fine 
hair 

Of  tenderest  brown,  but  so  inwardly 
golden 

I  half  used  to  fancy  the  sunshine  there, 
So  shy,  so  shifting,  so  waywardly  rare, 
Was  only  caught  for  the  moment  and 
holden 

While  I  could  say  Dearest !  and  kiss  it, 

and  then 
In  pity  let  go  to  the  summer  again. 

I  twisted  this  magic  in  gossamer  strings 
Over  a  wind-harp's  Delphian  hollow  ; 
Then  called  to  the  idle  breeze  that 
swings 

All  day  in  the  pine-tops,  and  clings,  and 
sings 

Mid  the  musical  leaves,  and  said,  "O, 
follow 

The  will  of  those  tears  that  deepen  my 
words, 

And  fly  to  my  window  to  waken  these 
chords." 


352 


AUF  WIEDERSEHEN.  —  PALINODE. 


So  they  trembled  to  life,  and,  doubt- 
fully 

Feeling  their  way  to  my  sense,  sang, 
"  Say  whether 
-  They  sit  all  day  by  the  greenwood  tree, 
The  lover  and  loved,  as  it  wont  to 
be, 

When  we  —  "  But  grief  conquered, 
and  all  together 

They  swelled  such  weird  murmur  as 
haunts  a  shore 

Of  some  planet  dispeopled,  —  "  Never- 
more ! " 

Then  from  deep  in  the  past,  as  seemed 
to  me, 

The  strings  gathered  sorrow  and  sang 
forsaken, 

"  One  lover  still  waits  'neath  the  green- 
wood tree, 

But  'tis  dark,"  and  they  shuddered, 
"  where  lieth  she 
Dark  and  cold!    Forever  must  one 
be  taken  ? " 

But  I  groaned,  "  0  harp  of  all  ruth 
bereft, 

This  Scripture  is  sadder,  —  '  the  other 
left '  ! " 

There  murmured,  as  if  one  strove  to 
speak, 

And  tears  came  instead ;  then  the  sad 

tones  wandered 
And  faltered  among  the  uncertain  chords 
In  a  troubled  doubt  between  sorrow  and 

words ; 

At  last  with  themselves  they  ques- 
tioned and  pondered, 

"  Hereafter  ?  —  who  knoweth  ? "  and  so 
they  sighed 

Down  the  long  steps  that  lead  to  silence 
and  died. 


AUF  WIEDERSEHEN! 

SUMMER. 

The  little  gate  was  reached  at  last, 
Half  hid  in  lilacs  down  the  lane  ; 
She  pushed  it  wide,  and,  as  she  past, 
A  wistful  look  she  backward  cast, 
And  said,  —  "  Auf  wiedersehen I " 

"With  hand  on  latch,  a  vision  white 

Lingered  reluctant,  and  again 
Half  doubting  if  she  did  aright, 


Soft  as  the  dews  that  fell  that  night, 
She  said,  —  "Auf  wiedersehen  J  " 

The  lamp's  clear  gleam  flits  up  the  stair  ; 

I  linger  in  delicious  pain  ; 
Ah,  in  that  chamber,  whose  rich  air 
To  breathe  in  thought  I  scarcely  dare, 

Thinks  she,  —  "Auf  wiedersehen  J  " 

'T  is  thirteen  years  ;  once  more  I  press 

The  turf  that  silences  the  lane  ; 
I  hear  the  rustle  of  her  dress, 
I  smell  the  lilacs,  and  —  ah,  yes, 
I  hear  "  Auf  wiedersehen  /" 

Sweet  piece  of  bashful  maiden  art ! 
The  English  words  had  seemed  too 
fain, 

But  these  —  they  drew  us  heart  to  heart, 
Yet  held  us  tenderly  apart ; 
She  said,  "Auf  wiedersehen  /  " 

PALINODE. 

AUTUMN. 

Still  thirteen  years  :  't  is  autumn  now 
On  field  and  hill,  in  heart  and  brain  ; 

The  naked  trees  at  evening  sough  ; 

The  leaf  to  the  forsaken  bough 
Sighs  not,  —  ' '  We  meet  again  !  " 

Two  watched  yon  oriole's  pendent  dome, 
That  now  is  void,  and  dank  with  rain, 
And  one,  —  0,  hope  more  frail  than 
foam  ! 

The  bird  to  his  deserted  home 
Sings  not,  —  "We  meet  again  !  " 

The  loath  gate  swings  with  rusty  creak  ; 
Once,  parting  there,  we  played  at 
pain  ; 

There  came  a  parting,  when  the  weak 
And  fading  lips  essayed  to  speak 
Vainly,  —  "We  meet  again  !  " 

Somewhere  is  comfort,  somewhere  faith, 

Though  thou  in  outer  dark  remain  ; 
One  sweet  sad  voice  ennobles  death, 
And  still,  for  eighteen  centuries  saith 
Softly,  —  "  Ye  meet  again  !  " 

If  earth  another  grave  must  bear, 

Yet  heaven  hath  won  a  sweeter  strain, 
And  something  whispers  my  despair, 
That,  from  an  orient  chamber  there, 
Floats  down,  "  We  meet  again  !  " 


AFTER  THE  BURIAL.  —  THE  DEAD  HOUSE. 


353 


AFTER  THE  BURIAL. 

Yes,  faith  is  a  goodly  anchor  ; 
When  skies  are  sweet  as  a  psalm, 
At  the  bows  it  lolls  so  stalwart, 
In  bluff,  broad-shouldered  calm. 

And  when  over  breakers  to  leeward 
The  tattered  surges  are  hurled, 
It  may  keep  our  head  to  the  tempest, 
With  its  grip  on  the  base  of  the  world. 

But,  after  the  shipwreck,  tell  me 
What  help  in  its  iron  thews, 
Still  true  to  the  broken  hawser, 
Deep  down  among  sea-weed  and  ooze  ? 

In  the  breaking  gulfs  of  sorrow, 
When  the  helpless  feet  stretch  out 
And  find  in  the  deeps  of  darkness 
No  footing  so  solid  as  doubt, 

Then  better  one  spar  of  Memory, 
One  broken  plank  of  the  Past, 
That  our  human  heart  may  cling  to, 
Though  hopeless  of  shore  at  last ! 

To  the  spirit  its  splendid  conjectures, 
To  the  flesh  its  sweet  despair, 
Its  tears  o'er  the  thin- worn  locket 
With  its  anguish  of  deathless  hair  ! 

Immortal  ?    I  feel  it  and  know  it, 
Who  doubts  it  of  such  as  she  ? 
But  that  is  the  pang's  very  secret,  — 
Immortal  away  from  me. 

There's  a  narrow  ridge  in  the  grave- 
yard 

Would  scarce  stay  a  child  in  his  race, 
But  to  me  and  my  thought  it  is  wider 
Than  the  star-sown  vague  of  Space. 

Your  logic,  my  friend,  is  perfect, 
Your  morals  most  drearily  true  ; 
But,  since  the  earth  clashed  on  her 
coffin, 

I  keep  hearing  that,  and  not  you.  . 

Console  if  you  will,  I  can  bear  it ; 
'T  is  a  well-meant  alms  of  breath  ; 
But  not  all  the  preaching  since  Adam 
Has  made  Death  other  than  Death. 

It  is  pagan  ;  but  wait  till  you  feel  it,  — 
That  jar  of  our  earth,  that  dull  shock 
When  the  ploughshare  of  deeper  pas- 
sion 

Tears  down  to  our  primitive  rock. 

23 


Communion  in  spirit !    Forgive  me, 
But  I,  who  am  earthy  and  weak, 
Would  give  all  my  incomes  from  dream' 
land 

For  a  touch  of  her  hand  on  my  cheek. 

That  little  shoe  in  the  corner, 
So  worn  and  wrinkled  and  brown, 
With  its  emptiness  confutes  you, 
And  argues  your  wisdom  down. 


THE  DEAD  HOUSE. 

Here  once  my  step  was  quickened, 
Here  beckoned  the  opening  door, 
And  welcome  thrilled  from  the  thresh- 
old 

To  the  foot  it  had  known  before. 

A  glow  came  forth  to  meet  me 

From  the  flame  that  laughed  in  the 
grate, 

And  shadows  adance  on  the  ceiling, 
Danced  blither  with  mine  for  a  mate. 

''I  claim  you,  old  friend,"  yawned  the. 
arm-chair, 
"This  corner,  you  know,  is  your 
seat "  ; 

"  Rest  your  slippers  on  me,"  beamed  the 
fender, 

" 1  brighten  at  touch  of  your  feet." 

"  We  know  the  practised  finger," 
Said  the  books,   4 'that  seems  like 
brain  "  ; 

And  the  shy  page  rustled  the  secret 
It  had  kept  till  I  came  again. 

Sang  the  pillow,  "My  down  once  quiv- 
ered 

On  nightingales'  throats  that  flew 
Through  moonlit  gardens  of  Hafiz 
To  gather  quaint  dreams  for  you." 

Ah  me,  where  the  Past  sowed  heart's- 
ease, 

The  Present  plucks  rue  for  us  men  ! 
I  come  back  :  that  scar  unhealing 
Was  not  in  the  churchyard  then. 

But,  I  think,  the  house  is  unaltered, 

I  will  go  and  beg  to  look 
At  the  rooms  that  were  once  familiar 

To  my  life  as  its  bed  to  a  brook. 


354 


A  MOOD.  —  THE  VOYAGE  TO  VINLAND. 


Unaltered  !    Alas  for  the  sameness 
That  makes  the  change  but  more  ! 

'T  is  a  dead  man  I  see  in  the  mirrors, 
'T  is  his  tread  that  chills  the  floor  ! 

To  learn  such  a  simple  lesson, 
Need  I  go  to  Paris  and  Rome, 

That  the  many  make  the  household, 
But  only  one  the  home  ? 

'T  was  just  a  womanly  presence, 

An  influence  unexprest, 
But  a  rose  she  had  worn,  on  my  grave- 
sod 

Were  more  than  long  life  with  the  rest ! 

'T  was  a  smile,  't  was  a  garment's  rustle, 
'T  was  nothing  that  1  can  phrase,x 

But  the  whole  dumb   dwelling  grew 
conscious, 
And  put  on  her  looks  and  ways. 

Were  it  mine  I  would  close  the  shutters, 
Like  lids  when  the  life  is  fled, 

And  the  funeral  fire  should  wind  it, 
This  corpse  of  a  home  that  is  dead. 

For  it  died  that  autumn  morning 
When  she,  its  soul,  was  borne 

To  lie  all  dark  on  the  hillside 

That  looks  over  woodland  and  corn. 


A  MOOD. 

I  go  to  the  ridge  in  the  forest 

I  haunted  in  days  gone  by, 

But  thou,  0  Memory,  pourest 

No  magical  drop  in  mine  eye, 

Nor  the  gleam  of  the  secret  restorest 

That  hath  faded  from  earth  and  sky  : 

A  Presence  autumnal  and  sober 

Invests  every  rock  and  tree, 

And  the  aureole  of  October 

Lights  the  maples,  but  darkens  me. 

Pine  in  the  distance, 

Patient  through  sun  or  rain, 

Meeting  with  graceful  persistence, 

With  yielding  but  rooted  resistance, 

The  northwind's  wrench  and  strain, 

No  memory  of  past  existence 

Brings  thee  pain  ; 

Right  for  the  zenith  heading, 

Friendly  with  heat  or  cold, 

Thine  arms  to  the  influence  spreading 

Of  the  heavens,  just  from  of  old, 


Thou  only  aspirest  the  more, 
Unregretful  the  old  leaves  shedding 
That  fringed  thee  with  music  before, 
And  deeper  thy  roots  embedding 
In  the  grace  and  the  beauty  of  yore  ; 
Thou  sigh'st  not,  "Alas,  I  am  older, 
The  green  of  last  summer  is  sear  !  " 
But  loftier,  hopefuller,  bolder, 
Winnest  broader  horizons  each  year. 

To  me 't  is  not  cheer  thou  art  singing : 

There  's  a  sound  of  the  sea, 

0  mournful  tree, 

In  thy  boughs  forever  clinging, 

And  the  far-off  roar 

Of  waves  on  the  shore 

A  shattered  vessel  flinging. 

As  thou  musest  still  of  the  ocean 
On  which  thou  must  float  at  last, 
And  seem'st  to  foreknow 
The  shipwreck's  woe 
And  the  sailor  wrenched  from  the  broken 
mast, 

Do  I,  in  this  vague  emotion, 
This  sadness  that  will  not  pass, 
Though  the  air  throbs  with  wings, 
And  the  field  laughs  and  sings, 
Do  I  forebode,  alas  ! 
The  ship-building  longer  and  wearier, 
The  voyage's  struggle  and  strife, 
And  then  the  darker  and  drearier 
Wreck  of  a  broken  life  ? 


THE  VOYAGE  TO  VINLAKD. 
I. 

biorn's  beckoners. 

Now  Biorn,  the  sun  of  Heriulf,  had  ill 

days 

Because  the  heart  within  him  seethed 

with  blood 
That  would  not  be  allayed  with  any  toil, 
Whether  of  war  or  hunting  or  the  oar, 
But  was  anhungered  for  some  joy  un- 
tried : 

For  the  brain  grew  not  weary  with  the 
limbs, 

But,  while  they  slept,  still  hammered 

like  a  Troll, 
Building  all  night  a  bridge  of  solid 

dream 

Between  him  and  some  purpose  of  his 
soul, 


THE  VOYAGE 

Or  will  to  find  a  purpose.    With  the 
dawn 

The  sleep-laid  timbers,  crumbled  to  soft 
mist, 

Denied  all  foothold.    But  the  dream 
remained, 

And  every  night  with  yellow-bearded 
kings 

His  sleep  was  haunted,  —  mighty  men 
of  old, 

Once  young  as  he,  now  ancient  like  the 
gods, 

And  safe  as  stars  in  all  men's  memo- 
ries. 

Strange  sagas  read  he  in  their  sea-blue 
eyes 

Cold  as  the  sea,  grandly  compassionless  ; 
Like  life,  they  made  him  eager  and  then 
mocked. 

Nay,  broad  awake,  they  would  not  let 
him  be ; 

They  shaped  themselves  gigantic  in  the 
mist, 

They  rose  far-beckoning  in  the  lamps  of 
heaven, 

They  whispered  invitation  in  the  winds, 
And  breath  came  from  them,  mightier 

than  the  wind, 
To  strain  the  lagging  sails  of  his  resolve, 
Till  that  grew  passion  which  before  was 

wish, 

And  youth  seemed  all  too  costly  to  be 
staked 

On  the   soiled  cards  wherewith  men 

played  their  game, 
Letting  Time  pocket  up  the  larger  life, 
Lost  with  base  gain  of  raiment,  food, 

and  roof. 

"What  helpeth  lightness  of  the  feet?" 
they  said, 

"Oblivion  runs  with  swifter  foot  than 
they; 

Or  strength  of  sinew  ?    New  men  come 
as  strong, 

And  those  sleep  nameless ;  or  renown  in 
war? 

Swords  grave  no  name  on  the  long- 

memoried  rock 
But  moss  shall  hide  it ;  they  alone  who 

wring 

Some  secret  purpose  from  the  unwilling 
gods 

Survive  in  song  for  yet  a  little  while 
To  vex,  like  us,  the  dreams   of  later 
men, 

Ourselves  a  dream,  and  dreamlike  all  we 
did." 


TO  VINLAND.  355 
II 

thorwald's  lay. 

So  Biorn  went  comfortless  but  for  his 
thought, 

And  by  his  thought  the  more  discom- 
forted, 

Till  Eric  Thurlson  kept  his  Yule-tide 

feast : 

And  thither  came  he,  called  among  the 
rest, 

Silent,  lone-minded,  a  church-door  to 
mirth : 

But,  ere  deep  draughts  forbade  such 

serious  song 
As  the  grave  Skald  might  chant  nor 

after  blush, 
Then  Eric  looked  at  Thorwald  where  he 

sat 

Mute  as  a  cloud  amid  the  stormy  hall, 
And  said :  "O  Skald,  sing  now  an  olden 
song, 

Such  as  our  fathers  heard  who  led  great 
lives ; 

And,  as  the  bravest  on  a  shield  is  borne 
Along  the  waving  host  that  shouts  him 
king, 

So  rode  their  thrones  upon  the  throng- 
ing seas  ! " 

Then  the  old  man  arose  ;  white-haired 
he  stood, 

White -bearded,    and  with  eyes  that 

looked  afar 
From  their  still  region  of  perpetual  snow, 
Beyond  the  little  smokes  and  stirs  of 

men  : 

His  head  was  bowed  with  gathered 

flakes  of  years, 
As  winter  bends  the  sea-foreboding  pine, 
But  something  triumphed  in  his  brow 

and  eye, 

Which  whoso  saw  it  could  not  see  and 
crouch : 

Loud  rang  the  emptied  beakers  as  he 
mused, 

Brooding  his  eyried  thoughts ;  then,  as 
an  eagle 

Circles  smooth- winged  above  the  wind- 
vexed  woods, 
So  wheeled  his  soul  into  the  air  of  song 
High  o'er  the  stormy  hall ;  and  thus  he 

sang : 

"The  fletcher  for  his  arrow-shaft  picks 
out 

Wood   closest -grained,  long -seasoned, 

straight  as  light ; 
And  from  a  quiver  full  of  such  as  these 


356  THE  VOYAGE 

The  wary  bowman,  matched  against  his 
peers, 

Long  doubting,  singles  yet  once  more 
the  best. 

Who  is  it  needs  such  flawless  shafts  as 
Fate? 

What  archer  of  his  arrows  is  so  choice, 
Or  hits  the  white  so  surely  ?    They  are 
men, 

The  chosen  of  her  quiver;  nor  for  her 
Will  every  reed  suffice,  or  cross-grained 
stick 

At  random   from   life's  vulgar  fagot 
plucked : 

Such  answer  household  ends;  but  she 
will  have 

Souls  straight  and  clear,  of  toughest 

fibre,  sound 
Down  to  the  heart  of  heart ;  from  these 

she  strips 

All  needless  stuff',  all  sapwood ;  seasons 
them ; 

From  circumstance  untoward  feathers 
plucks 

Crumpled  and  cheap ;  and  barbs  with 
iron  will : 

The  hour  that  passes  is  her  quiver-boy : 
When  she  draws  bow,  't  is  not  across 
the  wind, 

Nor  'gainst  the  sun  her  haste-snatched 

arrow  sings, 
For  sun  and  wind  have  plighted  faith 

to  her : 

Ere  men  have  heard  the  sinew  twang, 
behold 

In  the  butt's  heart  her  trembling  mes- 
senger ! 

"The  song  is  old  and  simple  that  I 
sing; 

But  old  and  simple  are  despised  as 
cheap, 

Though  hardest  to  achieve  of  human 
things : 

Good  were  the  days  of  yore,  when  men 
were  tried 

By  ring  of  shields,  as  now  by  ring  of 
words  ; 

But  while  the  gods  are  left,  and  hearts 
of  men, 

And  wide-doored  ocean,  still  the  days 
are  good. 

Still  o'er  the  earth  hastes  Opportunity, 
Seeking  the  hardy  soul  that  seeks  for 
her. 

Be  not  abroad,  nor  deaf  with  household 
cares 


TO  VINLAND. 

That  chatter  loudest  as  they  mean  the 

least  ; 

Swift-willed  is  thrice-willed ;  late  means 

nevermore ; 
Impatient  is  her  foot,  nor  turns  again." 
He  ceased ;  upon  his  bosom  sank  his 

beard 

Sadly,  as  one  who  oft  had  seen  her  pass 
Nor  stayed   her :   and  forthwith  the 

frothy  tide 
Of  interrupted  wassail  roared  along ; 
But  Biorn,  the  son  of  Heriulf,  sat  apart 
Musing,  and,  with  his  eyes  upon  the  fire, 
Saw  shapes  of  arrows,  lost  as  soon  as  seen. 
"A  ship,"  he  muttered,  "is  a  winged 

bridge 

That  leadeth  every  way  to  man's  desire, 
And  ocean  the  wide  gate  to  manful 
luck" ; 

And  then  with  that  resolve  his  heart 
was  bent, 

Which,  like  a  humming  shaft,  through 

many  a  stripe 
Of  day  and  night,  across  the  unpath- 

wayed  seas 
Shot  the  brave  prow  that  cut  on  Vin- 

land  sands 
The  first  rune  in  the  Saga  of  the  West. 

III. 

gudrida's  prophecy. 

Four  weeks  they  sailed,  a  speck  in  sky- 
shut  seas, 

Life,  where  was  never  life  that  knew 
itself, 

But  tumbled  lubber-like  in  blowing 
whales  ; 

Thought,  where  the  like  had  never  been 

before 

Since  Thought  primeval  brooded  the 
abyss ; 

Alone  as  men  were  never  in  the  world. 
They  saw  the  icy  foundlings  of  the  sea, 
White  cliffs  of  silence,  beautiful  by  daj7, 
Or  looming,  sudden -perilous,  at  night 
In  monstrous  hush ;  or  sometimes  in  the 
dark 

The  waves  broke  ominous  with  paly 

gleams 

Crushed  by  the  prow  in  sparkles  of  cold 
fire. 

Then  came  green  stripes  of  sea  that 

promised  land 
But  brought  it  not,  and  on  the  thirtieth 

day 


THE  VOYAGE 


TO  VINLAND. 


Low  in  the  West  were  wooded  shores 
like  cloud. 

They  shouted  as  men  shout  with  sud- 
den hope ; 

But  Biorn  was  silent,  such  strange  loss 
there  is 

Between  the  dream's  fulfilment  and  the 
dream, 

Such  sad  abatement  in  the  goal  attained. 

Then  Gudrida,  that  was  a  prophetess, 

Rapt  with  strange  influence  from  At- 
lantis, sang: 

Her  words:  the  vision  was  the  dream- 
ing shore's. 

Looms  there  the  New  Land : 
Locked  in  the  shadow 
Long  the  gods  shut  it, 
Niggards  of  newness 
Theyr  the  o'er-old. 

Little  it  looks  there, 
Slim  as  a  cloud-streak ; 
It  shall  fold  peoples 
Even  as  a  shepherd 
Foldeth  his  flock. 

Silent  it  sleeps  now ; 
Great  ships  shall  seek  it, 
Swarming  as  salmon ; 
Noise  of  its  numbers 
Two  seas  shall  hear. 

Man  from  the  Northland, 
Man  from  the  Southland, 
Haste  empty-handed ; 
„  No  more  than  manhood 
Bring  they,  and  hands. 

Dark  hair  and  fair  hair, 
Red  blood  and  blue  blood, 
There  shall  be  mingled ; 
Force  of  the  ferment 
Makes  the  New  Man. 

Pick  of  all  kindreds, 
King's  blood  shall  theirs  be, 
Shoots  of  the  eldest 
Stock  upon  Midgard, 
Sons  of  the  poor. 

Them  waits  the  New  Land ; 
They  shall  subdue  it, 
Leaving  their  sons'  sons 
Space  for  the  body, 
Space  for  the  soul. 


Leaving  their  sons'  sons 
All  things  save  song-craft, 
Plant  long  in  growing, 
Thrusting  its  tap-root 
Deep  in  the  Gone. 

Here  men  shall  grow  up 
Strong  from  self-helping ; 
Eyes  for  the  present 
Bring  they  as  eagles', 
Blind  to  the  Past. 

They  shall  make  over 
Creed,  law,  and  custom; 
Driving-men,  doughty 
Builders  of  empire, 
Builders  of  men. 

Here  is  no  singer  ; 
"What  should  they  sing  of? 
They,  the  unresting? 
Labor  is  ugly, 
Loathsome  is  change. 

These  the  old  gods  hate, 
Dwellers  in  dream-land, 
Drinking  delusion 
Out  of  the  empty 
Skull  of  the  Past. 

These  hate  the  old  gods, 
Warring  against  them ; 
Fatal  to  Odin, 
Here  the  wolf  Fenrir 
Lieth  in  wait. 

Here  the  gods'  Twilight 
Gathers,  earth-gulfing ; 
Blackness  of  battle, 
Fierce  till  the  Old  World 
Flares  up  in  fire. 

Doubt  not,  my  Northmen ; 
Fate  loves  the  fearless  ; 
Fools,  when  their  roof-tree 
Falls,  think  it  doomsday  ; 
Firm  stands  the  sky. 

Over  the  ruin 
See  I  the  promise ; 
Crisp  waves  the  cornfield, 
Peace-walled,  the  homestead 
Waits  open-doored. 

There  lies  the  New  Land ; 
Yours  to  behold  it, 
Not  to  possess  it ; 
Slowly  Fate's  perfect 
Fulness  shall  come. 


MAHMOOD  THE 


IMAGE-BREAKER. 


Then  from  your  strong  loins 
Seed  shall  be  scattered, 
Men  to  the  marrow, 
Wilderness  tamers, 
Walkers  of  waves. ; 

Jealous,  the  old  gods 
Shut  it  in  shadow, 
Wisely  they  ward  it, 
Egg  of  the  serpent, 
Bane  to  them  all. 

Stronger  and  sweeter 
New  gods  shall  seek  it 
Fill  it  with  man-folk 
Wise  for  the  future, 
Wise  from  the  past. 

Here  all  is  all  men's, 
Save  only  Wisdom ; 
King  he  that  wins  her ; 
Him  hail  they  helmsman, 
Highest  of  heart. 

Might  makes  no  master 
Here  any  longer ; 
Sword  is  not  swayer ; 
Here  e'en  the  gods  are 
Selfish  no  more. 

Walking  the  New  Earth, 
Lo,  a  divine  One 
Greets  all  men  godlike, 
Calls  them  his  kindred, 
He,  the  Divine. 

Is  it  Thor's  hammer 
Rays  in  his  right  hand? 
Weaponless  walks  he ; 
It  is  the  White  Christ, 
Stronger  than  Thor. 

Here  shall  a  realm  rise 
Mighty  in  manhood ; 
Justice  and  Mercy 
Here  set  a  stronghold 
Safe  without  spear. 

Weak  was  the  Old  World, 
Wearily  war-fenced ; 
Out  of  its  ashes, 
Strong  as  the  morning, 
Springeth  the  New. 

Beauty  of  promise, 
Promise  of  beauty, 


Safe  in  the  silence 
Sleep  thou,  till  cometh 
Light  to  thy  lids  ! 

Thee  shall  awaken 
Flame  from  the  furnace, 
Bath  of  all  brave  ones, 
Cleanser  of  conscience, 
Welder  of  will. 

Lowly  shall  love  thee, 
Thee,  open-handed ! 
Stalwart  shall  shield  thee, 
Thee,  worth  their  best  blood, 
AVaif  of  the  West ! 

Then  shall  come  singers, 
Singing  no  swan -song, 
Birth-carols,  rather, 
Meet  for  the  man  child 
Mighty  of  bone. 


MAHMOOD  THE  IMAGE-BREAKER. 

Old  events  have  modern  meanings; 

only  that  survives 
Of  past  history  which  finds  kindred  in 

all  hearts  and  lives. 

Mahmood  once,  the  idol-breaker,  spread- 
er of  the  Faith, 

Was  at  Sumnat  tempted  sorely,  as  the 
legend  saith. 

In  the  great  pagoda's  centre,  monstrous 

and  abhorred, 
Granite  on  a  throne  of  granite,  sat  the 

temple's  lord. 

Mahmood  paused  a  moment,  silenced  by 

the  silent  face 
That,  with  eyes  of  stone  unwavering, 

awed  the  ancient  place. 

Then  the  Brahmins  knelt  before  him, 

by  his  doubt  made  bold, 
Pledging  for  their  idol's  ransom  countless 

gems  and  gold. 

Gold  was  yellow  dirt  to  Mahmood,  but 

of  precious  use, 
Since  from  it  the  roots  of  power  suck  a 

potent  juice. 


INVITA  MINERVA.  —  THE  FOUNTAIN  OF  YOUTH. 


359 


' '  Were  yon  stone  alone  in  question,  tins 

would  please  me  well," 
Mahmood  said  ;  "but,  with  the  block 

there,  I  my  truth  must  sell. 

"Wealth  and  rule  slip  down  with  For- 
tune, as  her  wheel  turns  round  ; 

He  who  keeps  his  faith,  he  only  cannot 
be  discrowned. 

"Little  were  a  change  of  station,  loss 

of  life  or  crown, 
But  the  wreck  were  past  retrieving  if  the 

Man  fell  down.'1 

So  his  iron  mace  he  lifted,  smote  with 

might  and  main, 
And  the  idol,  on  the  pavement  tumbling, 

burst  in  twain. 

Luck  obeys  the  downright  striker  ;  from 

the  hollow  core, 
Fifty  times  the  Brahmins'  offer  deluged 

all  the  floor. 


INVITA  MINERVA. 

The  Bardling  came  where  by  a  river 
grew 

The  pennoned  reeds,  that,  as  the  west- 
wind  blew, 

Gleamed  and  sighed  plaintively,  as  if 
they  knew 

What  music  slept  enchanted  in  each 
stem, 

Till  Pan  should  choose  some  happy  one 
of  them, 

And  with  wise  lips  enlife  it  through  and 
through. 

The  Bardling  thought,  "  A  pipe  is  all  I 
need  ; 

Once  I  have  sought  me  out  a  clear, 

smooth  reed, 
And  shaped  it  to  my  fancy,  I  proceed 
To  breathe  such  strains  as,  yonder  mid 

the  rocks, 

The  strange  youth  blows,  that  tends 

Admetus'  flocks, 
And  all  the  maidens  shall  to  me  pay 

heed." 

The  summer  day  he  spent  in  questful 
round, 

And  many  a  reed  he  marred,  but  never 
found 


A  conjuring- spell  to  free  the  imprisoned 
sound ; 

At  last  his  vainly  wearied  limbs  he  laid 
Beneath  a  sacred  laurel's  flickering  shade, 
And  sleep  about  his  brain  her  cobweb 
wound. 

Then  strode  the  mighty  Mother  through 

his  dreams, 
Saying:  "The  reeds  along  a  thousand 

streams 

Are  mine,  and  who  is  he  that  plots  and 
schemes 

To  snare  the  melodies  wherewith  my 
breath 

Sounds  through  the  double  pipes  of  Life 

and  Death, 
Atoning  what  to   men   mad  discord 

seems  ? 

"He  seeks  not  me,  but  I  seek  oft  in 
vain 

For  him  who  shall  my  voiceful  reeds 
constrain, 

And  make  them  utter  their  melodious 
pain ; 

He  flies  the  immortal  gift,  for  well  he 
knows 

His  life  of  life  must  with  its  overflows 
Flood  the  unthankful  pipe,  nor  come 
again. 

"Thou  fool,  who  dost  my  harmless 

subjects  wrong, 
'T  is  not  the  singer's  wish  that  makes 

the  song : 

The  rhythmic  beauty  wanders  dumb, 
how  long, 

Nor  stoops  to  any  daintiest  instrument, 
Till,  found  its  mated  lips,  their  sweet 
consent 

Makes  mortal  breath  than  Time  and 
Fate  more  strong." 


THE  FOUNTAIN  OF  YOUTH. 
I. 

'T  is  a  woodland  enchanted  ! 
By  no  sadder  spirit 
Than  blackbirds  and  thrushes, 
That  whistle  to  cheer  it 
All  day  in  the  bushes, 
This  woodland  is  haunted  : 
And  in  a  small  clearing, 


360 


THE  FOUNTAIN  OF  YOUTH. 


Beyond  sight  or  hearing 

Of  human  annoyance, 

The  little  fount  gushes, 

First  smoothly,  then  dashes 

And  gurgles  and  Hashes, 

To  the  maples  and  ashes 

Confiding  its  joyance  ; 

Unconscious  confiding, 

Then,  silent  and  glossy, 

Slips  winding  and  hiding 

Through  alder-stems  mossy, 

Through  gossamer  roots 

Fine  as  nerves, 

That  tremble,  as  shoots 

Through  their  magnetized  curves 

The  allurement  delicious 

Of  the  water's  capricious 

Thrills,  gushes,  and  swerves. 

II. 

'Tis  a  woodland  enchanted! 

I  am  writing  no  fiction  ; 

And  this  fount,  its  sole  daughter, 

To  the  woodland  was  granted 

To  pour  holy  water 

And  win  benediction ; 

In  summer-noon  flushes, 

When  all  the  wood  hushes, 

Blue  dragon-flies  knitting 

To  and  fro  in  the  sun, 

With  sidelong  jerk  flitting 

Sink  down  on  the  rushes, 

And,  motionless  sitting, 

Hear  it  bubble  and  run, 

Hear  its  low  inward  singing, 

With  level  wings  swinging 

On  green  tasselled  rushes, 

To  dream  in  the  sun. 

in. 

'T  is  a  woodland  enchanted ! 
The  great  August  noonlight, 
Through  myriad  rifts  slanted, 
Leaf  and  bole  thickly  sprinkles 
With  flickering  gold  ; 
There,  in  warm  August  gloaming, 
With  quick,  silent  brightenings, 
From  meadow-lands  roaming, 
The  firefly  twinkles 
His  fitful  heat-lightnings ; 
There  the  magical  moonlight 
With  meek,  saintly  glory 
Steeps  summit  and  wold  ; 
There  whippoorwills  plain  in  the  soli- 
tudes hoary 


With  lone  cries  that  wander 

Now  hither,  now  yonder, 

Like  souls  doomed  of  old 

To  a  mild  purgatory ; 

But  through  noonlight  and  moonlight 

The  little  fount  tinkles 

Its  silver  saints' -bells, 

That  no  sprite  ill-boding 

May  make  his  abode  in 

Those  innocent  dells. 

IV. 

'T  is  a  woodland  enchanted  ! 
When  the  phebe  scarce  whistles 
Once  an  hour  to  his  fellow, 
And,  where  red  lilies  flaunted, 
Balloons  from  the  thistles 
Tell  summer's  disasters, 
The  butterflies  yellow, 
As  caught  in  an  eddy 
Of  air's  silent  ocean, 
Sink,  waver,  and  steady 
O'er  goats' -beard  and  asters, 
Like  souls  of  dead  flowers, 
With  aimless  emotion 
Still  lingering  unready 
To  leave  their  old  bowers  ; 
And  the  fount  is  no  dumber, 
But  still  gleams  and  flashes, 
And  gurgles  and  plashes, 
To  the  measure  of  summer  ; 
The  butterflies  hear  it, 
And  spell-bound  are  holden, 
Still  balancing  near  it 
O'er  the  goats' -beard  so  golden. 

v. 

'T  is  a  woodland  enchanted ! 

A  vast  silver  willow, 

I  know  not  how  planted, 

(This  wood  is  enchanted, 

And  full  of  surprises,) 

Stands  stemming  a  billow, 

A  motionless  billow 

Of  ankle-deep  mosses ; 

Two  great  roots  it  crosses 

To  make  a  round  basin, 

And  there  the  Fount  rises ; 

Ah,  too  pure  a  mirror 

For  one  sick  of  error 

To  see  his  sad  face  in ! 

No  dew-drop  is  stiller 

In  its  lupin-leaf  setting 

Than  this  water  moss-bounded; 

But  a  tiny  sand-pillar 


THE  FOUNTAIN  OF  YOUTH. 


361 


From  the  bottom  keeps  jetting, 
And  mermaid  ne'er  sounded 
Through  the  wreaths  of  a  shell, 
Down  amid  crimson  dulses 
In  some  dell  of  the  ocean, 
A  melody  sweeter 
Than  the  delicate  pulses, 
The  soft,  noiseless  metre, 
The  pause  and  the  swell 
Of  that  musical  motion  : 
I  recall  it,  not  see  it ; 
Could  vision  be  clearer  ? 
Half  I 'm  fain  to  draw  nearer 
Half  tempted  to  flee  it ; 
The  sleeping  Past  wake  not, 
Beware  ! 

One  forward  step  take  not, 
Ah  !  break  not 
That  quietude  rare  ! 
By  my  step  unaflrighted 
A  thrush  hops  before  it, 
And  o'er  it 

A  birch  hangs  delighted, 
Dipping,  dipping,  dipping  its  tremu- 
lous hair  ; 
Pure  as  the  fountain,  once 
I  came  to  the  place, 
(How  dare  I  draw  nearer  ?) 
I  bent  o'er  its  mirror, 
And  saw  a  child's  face 
Mid  locks  of  bright  gold  in  it  ; 
Yes,  pure  as  this  fountain  once,  — 
Since,  how  much  error  ! 
Too  holy  a  mirror 
For  the  man  to  behold  in  it 
His  harsh,  bearded  countenance ! 

VI. 

'T  is  a  woodland  enchanted ! 
Ah,  fly  unreturning ! 
Yet  stay  ;  — 

'T  is  a  woodland  enchanted, 
"Where  wonderful  chances 
Have  sway ; 

Luck  flees  from  the  cold  one 
But  leaps  to  the  bold  one 
Half-way ; 

"Why  should  I  be  daunted  ? 

Still  the  smooth  mirror  glances, 

Still  the  amber  sand  dances, 

One  look,  —  then  away ! 

O  magical  glass ! 

Canst  keep  in  thy  bosom 

Shades  of  leaf  and  of  blossom 

When  summer  days  pass, 

So  that  when  thy  wave  hardens 


It  shapes  as  it  pleases, 
Unharmed  by  the  breezes, 
Its  fine  hanging  gardens? 
Hast  those  in  thy  keeping, 
And  canst  not  uncover, 
Enchantedly  sleeping, 
The  old  shade  of  thy  lover  ? 
It  is  there  !    I  have  found  it  ! 
He  wakes,  the  long  sleeper  ! 
The  pool  is  grown  deeper, 
The  sand  dance  is  ending, 
The  white  floor  sinks,  blending 
With  skies  that  below  me 
Are  deepening  and  bending, 
And  a  child's  face  alone 
That  seems  not  to  know  me, 
With  hair  that  fades  golden 
In  the  heaven-glow  round  it, 
Looks  up  at  my  own : 
Ah,  glimpse  through  the  portal 
That  leads  to  the  throne, 
That  opes  the  child's  olden 
Regions  Elysian  ! 
Ah,  too  holy  vision 
For  thy  skirts  to  be  holden 
By  soiled  hand  of  mortal ! 
It  wavers,  it  scatters, 
'T  is  gone  past  recalling  ! 
A  tear's  sudden  falling 
The  magic  cup  shatters, 
Breaks  the  spell  of  the  waters, 
And  the  sand  cone  once  more, 
With  a  ceaseless  renewing, 
Its  dance  is  pursuing 
On  the  silvery  floor, 
O'er  and  o'er, 

With  a  noiseless  and  ceaseless  renewing. 

VII. 

'T  is  a  woodland  enchanted ! 

If  you  ask  me,  Where  is  it  ? 

I  only  can  answer, 

'T  is  past  my  disclosing ; 

Not  to  choice  is  it  granted 

By  sure  paths  to  visit 

The  still  pool  enclosing 

Its  blithe  little  dancer  ; 

But  in  some  day,  the  rarest 

Of  many  Septembers, 

When  the  pulses  of  air  rest, 

And  all  things  lie  dreaming 

In  drowsy  haze  steaming 

From  the  wood's  glowing  embers, 

Then,  sometimes,  unheeding, 

And  asking  not  whither, 

By  a  sweet  inward  leading 


362  YUSSOUF.  —  THE 

My  feet  are  drawn  thither, 

And,  looking  with  awe  in  the  magical 

mirror, 
I  see  through  my  tears, 
Half  doubtful  of  seeing, 
The  face  unperverted, 
The  warm  golden  being 
Of  a  child  of  five  years  ; 
And  spite  of  the  mists  and  the  error, 
And  the  days  overcast, 
Can  feel  that  I  walk  undeserted, 
But  forever  attended 
By  the  glad  heavens  that  bended 
O'er  the  innocent  past ; 
Toward  fancy  or  truth 
Doth  the  sweet  vision  win  me  ? 
Dare  I  think  that  I  cast 
In  the  fountain  of  youth 
The  fleeting  reflection 
Of  some  bygone  perfection 
That  still  lingers  in  me  ? 


YUSSOUF. 

A  stranger  came  one  night  to  Yus- 

souf's  tent, 
Saying,  "Behold  one  outcast  and  in 

dread, 

Against  whose  life  the  bow  of  power  is 
bent, 

Who  flies,  and  hath  not  where  to  lay 

his  head  ; 
I  come  to  thee  for  shelter  and  for  food, 
To  Yussouf,  called  through  all  our  tribes 

"The  Good." 

"This  tent  is  mine,"  said  Yussouf,  "but 
no  more 

Than  it  is  God's  ;  come  in,  and  be  at 
peace ; 

Freely  shalt  thou  partake  of  all  my 
store 

As  I  of  His  who  buildeth  over  these 
Oar  tents  his  glorious  roof  of  night  and 
day, 

And  at  whose  door  none  ever  yet  heard 
Nay." 

So  Yussouf  entertained  his  guest  that 
night, 

And,  waking  him  ere  day,  said  :  * '  Here 
is  gold  ; 

My  swiftest  horse  is  saddled  for  thy 
flight; 

Depart  before  the  prying  day  grow 
bold." 


DARKENED  MIND. 

As  one  lamp  lights  another,  nor  grows 
less, 

So  nobleness  enkindleth  nobleness. 

That  inward  light  the  stranger's  face 

made  grand, 
Which  shines  from  all  self-conquest; 

kneeling  low, 
He  bowed  his  forehead  upon  Yussouf  's 

hand, 

Sobbing :  "0  Sheik,  I  cannot  leave  thee 
so ; 

I  will  repay  thee  ;  all  this  thou  hast 
done 

Unto  that  Ibrahim  who  slew  thy  son ! " 

"Take  thrice  the  gold,"  said  Yussouf, 

' '  for  w^ith  thee 
Into  the  desert,  never  to  return, 
My  one  black  thought  shall  ride  away 

from  me  ; 

First-born,  for  whom  by  day  and  night 
I  yearn, 

Balanced  and  just  are  all  of  God's  de- 
crees ; 

Thou  art  avenged,  my  first-born,  sleep 
in  peace  !  " 


THE  DARKENED  MIND. 

The  fire  is  burning  clear  and  blithely, 
Pleasantly  whistles  the  winter  wind  ; 
We  are  about  thee,  thy  friends  and  kin- 
dred, 

On  us  all  flickers  the  firelight  kind  ; 
There  thou  sitt'st  in  thy  wonted  corner 
Lone  and  awful  in  thy  darkened  mind. 

There  thou  sitt'st ;  now  and  then  thou 

moanest ; 

Thou  dost  talk  with  what  we  cannot  see, 
Lookest  at  us  with  an  eye  so  doubtful, 
It  doth  put  us  very  far  from  thee  ; 
There  thou  sittest ;  we  would  fain  be 

nigh  thee, 
But  we  know  that  it  can  never  be. 

We  can  touch  thee,  still  we  are  no 
nearer  ; 

Gather  round  thee,  still  thou  art  alone  ; 
The  wide  chasm  of  reason  is  between  us  ; 
Thou  confutest  kindness  with  a  moan  ; 
We  can  speak  to  thee,  and  thou  canst 
answer, 

Like  two  prisoners  through  a  wall  of 
stone. 


WHAT  RABBI  JEHOSHA  SAID. — 


A  WINTER— EVENING  HYMN.  3G3 


Hardest  heart  would  call  it  very  awful 
When  thou  look'st  at  us  and  seest  —  0, 
what  ? 

If  we  move  away,  thou  sittest  gazing 
With  those  vague  eyes  at  the  selfsame 
spot, 

And  thou  mutterest,  thy  hands  thou 
wringest, 

Seeing  something,  —  us  thou  seest  not. 

Strange  it  is  that,  in  this  open  bright- 
ness, 

Thou  shouldst  sit  in  such  a  narrow  cell ; 
Strange  it  is  that  thou  shouldst  be  so 
lonesome 

Where  those  are  who  love  thee  all  so 
well ; 

Not  so  much  of  thee  is  left  among  us 
As  the  hum  outliving  the  hushed  bell. 


WHAT  RABBI  JEHOSHA  SAID. 

Rabbi  Jehosha  used  to  say 
That  God  made  angels  every  day, 
Perfect  as  Michael  and  the  rest 
First  brooded  in  creation's  nest, 
Whose  only  office  was  to  cry 
HosannaJ  once,  and  then  to  die  ; 
Or  rather,  with  Life's  essence  blent, 
To  be  led  home  from  banishment. 

Rabbi  Jehosha  had  the  skill 

To  know  that  Heaven  is  in  God's  will ; 

And  doing  that,  though  for  a  space 

One  heart-beat  long,  may  win  a  grace 

As  full  of  grandeur  and  of  glow 

As  Princes  of  the  Chariot  know. 

'T  were  glorious,  no  doubt,  to  be 
One  of  the  strong-winged  Hierarchy, 
To  burn  with  Seraphs,  or  to  shine 
With  Cherubs,  deathlessly  divine  ; 
Yet  I,  perhaps,  poor  earthly  clod, 
Could  I  forget  myself  in  God, 
Could  I  but  find  my  nature's  clew 
Simply  as  birds  and  blossoms  do, 
And  but  for  one  rapt  moment  know 
'T  is  Heaven  must  come,  not  we  must  go, 
Should  win  my  place  as  near  the  throne 
As  the  pearl-angel  of  its  zone, 
And  God  would  listen  mid  the  throng 
For  my  one  breath  of  perfect  song, 
That,  in  its  simple  human  way, 
Said  all  the  Host  of  Heaven  could  say. 


ALL-SAINTS. 

One  feast,  of  holy  days  the  crest, 

I,  though  no  Churchman,  love  to 
keep, 

All-Saints,  —  the  unknown  good  that 
rest 

In  God's  still  memory  folded  deep  ; 
The  bravely  dumb  that  did  their  deed, 

And  scorned  to  blot  it  with  a  name, 
Men  of  the  plain  heroic  breed, 

That  loved  Heaven's  silence  more  than 
fame. 

Such  lived  not  in  the  past  alone, 

But  thread  to-day  the  unheeding 
street, 

And  stairs  to  Sin  and  Famine  known 
Sing  with  the  welcome  of  their  feet ; 

The  den  they  enter  grows  a  shrine, 
The  grimy  sash  an  oriel  burns, 

Their  cup  of  water  warms  like  wine, 
Their  speech  is  filled  from  heavenly 
urns. 

About  their  brows  to  me  appears 

An  aureole  traced  in  tenderest  light, 
The  rainbow -gleam  of  smiles  through 
tears 

In  dying  eyes,  by  them  made  bright, 
Of  souls  that  shivered  on  the  edge 

Of  that  chill  ford  repassed  no  more, 
And  in  their  mercy  felt  the  pledge 

And  sweetness  of  the  farther  shore. 


A  WINTER-EVENING  HYMN  TO  MY 
FIRE. 

I. 

Beauty  on  my  hearth-stone  blazing  ! 
To-night  the  triple  Zoroaster 
Shall  my  prophet  be  and  master  : 
To-night  will  I  pure  Magian  be, 
Hymns  to  thy  sole  honor  raising, 
While  thou  leapest  fast  and  faster, 
Wild  with  self- delighted  glee, 
Or  sink'st  low  and  glowest  faintly 
As  an  aureole  still  and  saintly, 
Keeping  cadence  to  my  praising 
Thee  !  still  thee  !  and  only  thee  !  - 

II. 

Elfish  daughter  of  Apollo  ! 

Thee,  from  thy  father  stolen  and  bound 


364 


A  WINTER-EVENING 


HYMN  TO  MY  FIRE. 


To  serve  in  Vulcan's  clangorous  smithy 

Prometheus  (primal  Yankee)  found, 

And,  when  he  had  tampered  with  thee, 

(Too  confiding  little  maid  !) 

In  a  reed's  precarious  hollow 

To  our  frozen  earth  conveyed  : 

For  he  swore  I  know  not  what ; 

Endless  ease  should  be  thy  lot, 

Pleasure  that  should  never  falter, 

Lifelong  play,  and  not  a  duty 

Save  to  hover  o'er  the  altar, 

Vision  of  celestial  beauty, 

Fed  with  precious  woods  and  spices  ; 

Then,  perfidious  !  having  got 

Thee  in  the  net  of  his  devices, 

Sold  thee  into  endless  slavery, 

Made  thee  a  drudge  to  boil  the  pot, 

Thee,  Helios'  daughter,  who  dost  bear 

His  likeness  in  thy  golden  hair  ; 

Thee,  by  nature  wild  and  wavery, 

Palpitating,  evanescent 

As  the  shade  of  Dian's  crescent, 

Life,  motion,  gladness,  everywhere  ! 


in. 

Fathom  deep  men  bury  thee 
In  the  furnace  dark  and  still, 
There,  with  dreariest  mockery, 
Making  thee  eat,  against  thy  will, 
Blackest  Pennsylvanian  stone  ; 
But  thou  dost  avenge  thy  doom, 
For,  from  out  thy  catacomb, 
Day  and  night  thy  wrath  is  blown 
In  a  withering  simoom, 
And,  adown  that  cavern  drear, 
Thy  black  pitfall  in  the  floor, 
Staggers  the  lusty  antique  cheer, 
Despairing,  and  is  seen  no  more ! 


IV. 

Elfish  I  may  rightly  name  thee  ; 
We  enslave,  but  cannot  tame  thee  ; 
With  fierce  snatches,  now  and  then, 
Thou  pluckest  at  thy  right  again, 
And  thy  down- trod  instincts  savage 
To  stealthy  insurrection  creep, 
While  thy  wittol  masters  sleep, 
And  burst  in  undiscerning  ravage : 
Then  how  thou  shak'st  thy  bacchant 
locks  ! 

While  brazen  pulses,  far  and  near, 
Throb  thick  and  thicker,  wild  with  fear 
And  dread  conjecture,  till  the  drear 
Disordered  clangor  every  steeple  rocks  ! 


v. 

But  when  we  make  a  friend  of  thee, 
And  admit  thee  to  the  hall 
On  our  nights  of  festival, 
Then,  Cinderella,  who  could  see 
In  thee  the  kitchen's  stunted  thrall  ? 
Once  more  a  Princess  lithe  and  tall, 
Thou  dancest  with  a  wrhispering  tread, 
While  the  bright  marvel  of  thy  head 
In  crinkling  gold  floats  all  abroad, 
And  gloriously  dost  vindicate 
The  legend  of  thy  lineage  great, 
Earth- exiled  daughter  of  the  Pythian 
god  ! 

Now  in  the  ample  chimney-place, 
To  honor  thy  acknowledged  race, 
We  crown  thee  high  with  laurel  good, 
Thy  shining  father's  sacred  wood, 
Which,  guessing  thy  ancestral  right, 
Sparkles  and  snaps  his  dumb  delight, 
And,  at  thy  touch,  poor  outcast  one, 
Feels  through  his  gladdened  fibres  go 
The  tingle  and  thrill  and  vassal  glow 
Of  instincts  loyal  to  the  sun. 

VI. 

0  thou  of  home  the  guardian  Lar, 
And,  when  our  earth  hath  wandered  far 
Into  the  cold,  and  deep  snow  covers 
The  walks  of  our  New  England  lovers, 
Their  sweet  secluded  evening-star  ! 
'T  was  with  thy  rays  the  English  Muse 
Ripened  her  mild  domestic  hues  ; 
'T  was  by  thy  flicker  that  she  conned 
The  fireside  wisdom  that  enrings 
With  light  from  heaven  familiar  things  ; 
By  thee  she  found  the  homely  faith 
In  whose  mild  eyes  thy  comfort  stay'th, 
When  Death,  extinguishing  his  torch, 
Gropes  for  the  latch-string  in  the  porch ; 
The  love  that  wanders  not  beyond 
His  earliest  nest,  but  sits  and  sings 
While   children  smooth   his  patient 
wings  ; 

Therefore  with  thee  I  love  to  read 
Our  brave  old  poets  :  at  thy  touch  how 
stirs 

Life  in  the  withered  words  !  how  swift 
recede 

Time's  shadows  !  and  how  glows  again 
Through  its  dead  mass  the  incandescent 
verse, 

As  when  upon  the  anvils  of  the  brain 
It  glittering  lay,  cyclopically  wrought 
By  the  fast-throbbing  hammers  of  the 
|       poet's  thought  ! 


fancy's  casuistry. 


365 


Thou  murmurest,  too,  divinely  stirred, 

The  aspirations  unattained, 

The  rhythms  so  rathe  and  delicate, 

They  bent  and  strained 

And  broke,  beneath  the  sombre  weight 

Of  any  airiest  mortal  word. 

VII. 

What  warm  protection  dost  thou  bend 
Bound  curtained  talk  of  friend  with 
friend, 

While  the  gray  snow-storm,  held  aloof, 
To  softest  outline  rounds  the  roof, 
Or  the  rude  North  with  baffled  strain 
Shoulders  the  frost-starred  window-pane  ! 
Now  the  kind  nymph  to  Bacchus  borne 
By  Morpheus'  daughter,  she  that  seems 
Gifted  upon  her  natal  morn 
By  him  with  fire,  by  her  with  dreams, 
Nicotia,  dearer  to  the  Muse 
Than  all  the  grape's  bewildering  juice, 
We  worship,  unforbid  of  thee  ; 
And,  as  her  incense  floats  and  curls 
In  airy  spires  and  wayward  whirls, 
Or  poises  on  its  tremulous  stalk 
A  flower  of  frailest  revery, 
So  winds  and  loiters,  idly  free, 
The  current  of  unguided  talk, 
Now  laughter-rippled,  and  now  caught 
In  smooth,  dark  pools  of  deeper  thought. 
Meanwhile  thou  mellowest  every  word, 
A  sweetly  unobtrusive  third  ; 
For  thou  hast  magic  beyond  wine, 
To  unlock  natures  each  to  each  ; 
The   unspoken    thought    thou  canst 
divine  ; 

Thou  fill'st  the  pauses  of  the  speech 

With  whispers  that  to  dream-land  reach 

And  frozen  fancy-springs  unchain 

In  Arctic  outskirts  of  the  brain  ; 

Sun  of  all  inmost  confidences, 

To  thy  rays  doth  the  heart  unclose 

Its  formal  calyx  of  pretences, 

That  close  against  rude  day's  offences, 

And  open  its  shy  midnight  rose  ! 

VII. 

Thou  holdest  not  the  master  key 
With  which  thy  Sire  sets  free  the  mystic 
gates 

Of  Past  and  Future  :  not  for  common 
fates 

Do  they  wide  open  fling, 
And,  with  a  far-heard  ring, 
Swing  back  their  willing  valves  melo- 
diously ; 


Only  to  ceremonial  days, 
And  great  processions  of  imperial  song 
That  set  the  world  at  gaze, 
Doth  such  high  privilege  belong  : 
But  thou  a  postern-door  canst  ope 
To  humbler  chambers  of  the  selfsame 
palace 

Where  Memory  lodges,  and  her  sister 
Hope, 

Whose  being  is  but  as  a  crystal  chalice 
Which,  with  her  various  mood,  the 

elder  fills 
Of  joy  or  sorrow, 
So  coloring  as  she  wills 
With  hues  of  yesterday  the  unconscious 

morrow. 

IX. 

Thou  sinkest,  and  my  fancy  sinks  with 
thee  : 

For  thee  I  took  the  idle  shell, 
And  struck  the  unused  chords  again, 
But  they  are  gone  who  listened  well ; 
Some  are  in  heaven,  and  all  are  far  from 
me : 

Even  as  I  sing,  it  turns  to  pain, 

And  with  vain  tears  my  eyelids  throb 

and  swell : 
Enough  ;  I  come  not  of  the  race 
That  hawk  their  sorrows  in  the  market- 
place. 

Earth  stops  the  ears  I  best  had  loved  to 
please  ; 

Then  break,  ye  untuned  chords,  or  rust 
in  peace  ! 

As  if  a  white-haired  actor  should  come 
back 

Some  midnight  to  the  theatre  void  and 
black, 

And  there  rehearse  his  youth's  great 
part 

Mid  thin  applauses  of  the  ghosts, 
So  seems  it  now  :  ye  crowd  upon  my 
heart, 

And  I  bow  down  in  silence,  shadowy 
hosts  ! 


FANCY'S  CASUISTRY. 

How  struggles  with  the  tempest's  swells 
That  warning  of  tumultuous  bells  ! 
The  fire  is  loose  !  and  frantic  knells 

Throb  fast  and  faster, 
As  tower  to  tower  confusedly  tells 

News  of  disaster. 


\ 


366 


TO  MR.  JOHN  BARTLETT. 


But  on  my  far-off  solitude 

No  harsh  alarums  can  intrude  ; 

The  terror  comes  to  me  subdued 

And  charmed  by  distance, 
To  deepen  the  habitual  mood 

Of  my  existence. 

Are  those,  I  muse,  the  Easter  chimes  ? 
And  listen,  weaving  careless  rhymes 
While  the  loud  city's  griefs  and  crimes 

Pay  gentle  allegiance 
To  the  line  quiet  that  sublimes 

These  dreamy  regions. 

And  when  the  storm  o'erwhelms  the 
shore, 

I  watch  entranced  as,  o'er  and  o'er, 
The  light  revolves  amid  the  roar 

So  still  and  saintly, 
Now  large  and  near,  now  more  and 
more 

Withdrawing  faintly. 

This,  too,  despairing  sailors  see 
Flash  out  the  breakers  'neath  their  lee 
In  sudden  snow,  then  lingeringly 

Wane  tow'rd  eclipse, 
While  through  the  dark  the  shuddering 
sea 

Gropes  for  the  ships. 

And  is  it  right,  this  mood  of  mind 
That  thus,  in  re  very  enshrined, 
Can  in  the  world  mere  topics  find 

For  musing  stricture, 
Seeing  the  life  of  humankind 

Only  as  picture  ? 

The  events  in  line  of  battle  go  ; 
In  vain  for  me  their  trumpets  blow 
As  unto  him  that  lieth  low 
In  death's  dark  arches, 
And  through  the  sod  hears  throbbing 
slow 

The  muffled  marches. 

0  Duty,  am  I  dead  to  thee 
In  this  my  cloistered  ecstasy, 
In  this  lone  shallop  on  the  sea 

That  drifts  tow'rd  Silence  ? 
And  are  those  visioned  shores  I  see 

But  sirens'  islands  ? 

My  Dante  frowns  with  lip-locked  mien, 
As  who  would  say,  "  'T  is  those,  I  ween, 
Whom  lifelong  armor-chafe  makes  lean 
That  win  the  laurel "  ; 


But  where  is  Truth  ?    What  does  it 
mean, 

The  world-old  quarrel  ? 

Such  questionings  are  idle  air  : 
Leave  what  to  do  and  what  to  spare 
To  the  inspiring  moment's  care, 

Nor  ask  for  payment 
Of  fame  or  gold,  but  just  to  wear 

Unspotted  raiment. 


TO  MR.  JOHN  BARTLETT, 

WHO    HAD   SENT    ME    A  SEVEN-POUND 
TROUT. 

Fit  for  an  Abbot  of  Theleme, 

For  the  whole  Cardinals'  College,  or 
The  Pope  himself  to  see  in  dream 
Before  his  lenten  vision  gleam, 

He  lies  there,  the  sogdologer  ! 

His  precious  flanks  with  stars  besprent, 

Worthy  to  swim  in  Castaly  ! 
The  friend  by  whom  such  gifts  are  sent, 
For  him  shall  bumpers  full  be  spent, 
His  health  I  be  Luck  his  fast  ally  ! 

I  see  him  trace  the  wayward  brook 

Amid  the  forest  mysteries, 
Where  at  their  shades  shy  aspens  look, 
Or  where,  with  many  a  gurgling  crook, 
It  croons  its  woodland  histories. 

I  see  leaf-shade  and  sun -fleck  lend 

Their  tremulous,  sweet  vicissitude 
To  smooth,   dark  pool,   to  crinkling 
bend, — 

(0,  stew  him,  Ann,  as  't  were  your 
friend, 

With  amorous  solicitude  !) 

I  see  him  step  with  caution  due, 

Soft  as  if  shod  with  moccasins, 
Grave  as  in  church,  for  who  plies  you, 
Sweet  craft,  is  safe  as  in  a  pew 

From  all  our  common  stock  o'  sins. 

The  unerring  fly  I  see  him  cast, 

That  as  a  rose-leaf  falls  as  soft, 

A  flash  !  a  whirl  !  he  has  him  fast  ! 

We  tyros,  how  that  struggle  last 
Confuses  and  appalls  us  oft. 

Unfluttered  he  :  calm  as  the  sky 
Looks  on  our  tragi-comedies, 


ODE  TO  HAPPINESS. 


367 


This  way  and  that  he  lets  him  fly, 
A  sunbeam -shuttle,  then  to  die 

Lands  him,  with  cool  aplomb,  at 
ease. 

The  friend  who  gave  our  board  such  gust, 

Life's  care  may  he  o'erstep  it  half, 
And,  when  Death  hooks  him,  as  he  must, 
He  '11  do  it  handsomely,  I  trust, 

And  John  H  write  his  epitaph  !  j 

O,  born  beneath  the  Fishes'  sign, 

Of  constellations  happiest, 
May  he  somewhere  with  Walton  dine, 
May  Horace  send  him  Massic  wine, 

And  Burns  Scotch  drink,  the  nap- 
piest  ! 

And  when  they  come  his  deeds  to  weigh, 

And  how  he  used  the  talents  his, 
One  trout-scale  in  the  scales  he  '11  lay 
(If  trout  had  scales),  and 't  will  outsway 
The  wrong  side  of  the  balances. 


ODE  TO  HAPPINESS. 

Spirit,  that  rarely  comest  now 
And  only  to  contrast  my  gloom, 
Like  rainbow-feathered    birds  that 
bloom 

A  moment  on  some  autumn  bough 
That,  with  the  spurn  of  their  farewell, 
Sheds  its  last  leaves,  —  thou  once  didst 
dwell 

"With  me  year-long,  and  make  intense 
To  boyhood's  wisely  vacant  days 
Their  fleet  but  all-sufficing  grace 

Of  trustful  inexperience, 

While  soul  could  still  transfigure  sense, 
And  thrill,  as  with  love's  first  caress, 
At  life's  mere  unexpectedness. 

Days  when  my  blood  would  leap  and 
run 

As  full  of  sunshine  as  a  breeze, 
Or  spray  tossed  up  by  Summer  seas 
That  doubts  if  it  be  sea  or  sun  ! 
Days  that  flew  swiftly  like  the  band 

That  played  in  Grecian  games  at  strife, 
And  passed  from  eager  hand  to  hand 
The  onward- dancing  torch  of  life  ! 

Wing-footed  !  thou  abid'st  with  him 
Who  asks  it  not  ;  but  he  who  hath 
Watched  o'er  the  waves  thy  waning 
path, 

Shall  nevermore  behold  returning 


Thy    high -heaped    canvas  shoreward 

yearning  ! 
Thou  first  reveal'st  to  us  thy  face 
Turned  o'er  the  shoulder's  parting  grace, 
A  moment  glimpsed,  then  seen  no 

more,  — 

Thou  whose  swift  footsteps  we  can  trace 
Away  from  every  mortal  door. 

Nymph  of  the  unreturning  feet, 

How  may  I  win  thee  back  ?    But  no, 
I  do  thee  wrong  to  call  thee  so  ; 
'T  is  I  am  changed,  not  thou  art  fleet  : 
The  man  thy  presence  feels  again, 
Not  in  the  blood,  but  in  the  brain, 
Spirit,  that  lov'st  the  upper  air 
Serene  and  passionless  and  rare, 

Such  as  on  mountain  heights  we  find 
And    wide-viewed    uplands  of  the 
mind  ; 

Or  such  as  scorns  to  coil  and  sing 

Kound  any  but  the  eagle's  wing 

Of  souls  that  with  long  upward  beat 
Have  won  an  undisturbed  retreat 

Where,  poised  like  winged  victories, 

They  mirror  in  relentless  eyes 

The  life  broad-basking  'neath  their 
feet,  — 

Man  ever  with  his  Now  at  strife, 

Pained  with  first  gasps  of  earthly  air, 
Then  praying  Death  the  last  to  spare, 

Still  fearful  of  the  ampler  life . 

Sot  unto  them  dost  thou  consent 
Who,  passionless,  can  lead  at  ease 

A  life  of  unalloyed  content 

A  life  like  that  of  land-locked  seas, 

Who  feel  no  elemental  gush 

Of  tidal  forces,  no  fierce  rush 

Of  storm  deep-grasping  scarcely  spent 
'Twixt  continent  and  continent. 

Such  quiet  souls  have  never  known 
Thy  truer  inspiration,  thou 
Who  lov'st  to  feel  upon  thy  brow 

Spray  from  the  plunging  vessel  thrown 
Grazing  the  tusked  lee  shore,  the  cliff 

That  o'er  the  abrupt  gorge  holds  its 
breath, 

Where  the  frail  hair-breadth  of  an  if 
Is  all  that  sunders  life  and  death  : 
These,  too,  are  cared-for,  and  round  these 
Bends  her  mild  crook  thy  sister  Peace  ; 
These  in  unvexed  dependence  lie, 
Each  'neath  his  strip  of  household  sky  ; 
O'er  these  clouds  wander,  and  the  blue 
Hangs    motionless    the    whole  day 
through  ; 


368 


VILLA  FRANCA. 


Stars  rise  for  them,  and  moons  grow 
large 

And  lessen  in  such  tranquil  wise 
As  joys  and  sorrows  do  that  rise 

Within  their  nature's  sheltered  marge ; 
Their  hours  into  each  other  flit 

Like  the  leaf-shadows  of  the  vine 
And  fig-tree  under  which  they  sit, 

And  their  still  lives  to  heaven  incline 
With  an  unconscious  habitude, 

Unhistoried  as  smokes  that  rise  - 
From  happy  hearths  and  sight  elude 

In  kindred  blue  of  morning  skies. 

Wayward  !  when  once  we  feel  thy  lack, 
'T  is  worse  than  vain  to  woo  thee  back  ! 

Yet  there  is  one  who  seems  to  be 
Thine  elder  sister,  in  whose  eyes 
A  faint  far  northern  light  will  rise 

Sometimes,  and  bring  a  dream  of  thee  ; 
She  is  not  that  for  which  youth  hoped, 

But  she  hath  blessings  all  her  own, 
Thoughts  pure  as  lilies  newly  oped, 

And  faith  to  sorrow  given  alone  : 
Almost  I  deem  that  it  is  thou 
Come  back  with  graver  matron  brow, 

With  deepened  eyes  and  bated  breath, 

Like  one  that  somewhere  hath  met 
Death, 

But  "No,"  she  answers,  "I  am  she 
Whom  the  gods  love,  Tranquillity  : 
That  other  whom  you  seek  forlorn 
Half  earthly  was  ;  but  I  am  born 
Of  the  immortals,  and  our  race 
Wears  still  some  sadness  on  its  face  : 

He  wins  me  late,  but  keeps  me  long, 
Who,  dowered  with  every  gift  of  passion, 
In  that  fierce  flame  can  forge  and 
fashion 

Of  sin  and  self  the  anchor  strong  ; 
Can  thence  compel  the  driving  force 
Of  daily  life's  mechanic  course, 
Nor  less  the  nobler  energies 
Of  needful  toil  and  culture  wise  ; 
Whose  soul  is  worth  the  tempter's  lure 
Who  can  renounce,  and  yet  endure, 
To  him  I  come,  not  lightly  wooed, 
But  won  by  silent  fortitude." 


VILLA  FRANCA. 

1S59. 

Wait  a  little  :  do  we  not  wait  ? 
Louis  Napoleon  is  not  Fate, 
Francis  Joseph  is  not  Time  ; 


There 's  One  hath   swifter  feet  than 
Crime  ; 

Cannon-parliaments  settle  naught  ; 
Venice  is  Austria's,  —  whose  is  Thought  ? 
Minie  is  good,  but,  spite  of  change, 
Gutenberg's  gun  has  the  longest  range. 

Spin,  spin,  Clotho,  spin  ! 

Lachesis,  twist !  and,  Atropos,  sever  ! 

In  the  shadow,  year  out,  year  in, 

The  silent  headsman  waits  forever. 

Wait,  we  say  :  our  years  are  long  ; 
Men  are  weak,  but  Man  is  strong  ; 
Since  the  stars  first  curved  their  rings, 
We  have  looked  on  many  things  ; 
Great  wars  come  and  great  wars  go, 
Wolf-tracks  light  on  polar  snow  ; 
We  shall  see  him  come  and  gone, 
This  second-hand  Napoleon. 

Spin,  spin,  Clotho,  spin  ! 

Lachesis,  twist !  and,  Atropos,  sever  ! 

In  the  shadow,  year  out,  year  in, 

The  silent  headsman  waits  forever. 

We  saw  the  elder  Corsican, 
And  Clotho  muttered  as  she  span, 
While  crowned  lackeys  bore  the  train, 
Of  the  pinchbeck  Charlemagne  : 
"  Sister,  stint  not  length  of  thread  ! 
Sister,  stay  the  scissors  dread  ! 
On  Saint  Helen's  granite  bleak, 
Hark,  the  vulture  whets  his  beak  !  " 
Spin,  spin,  Clotho,  spin  ! 
Lachesis,  twist !  and,  Atropos,  sever  I 
In  the  shadow,  year  out,  year  in, 
The  silent  headsman  waits  forever. 

The  Bonapartes,  we  know  their  bees  * 
That  wade  in  honey  red  to  the  knees ; 
Their  patent  reaper,  its  sheaves  sleep 
sound 

In  dreamless  garners  underground  : 
We  know  false  glory's  spendthrift  race 
Pawning  nations  for  feathers  and  lace  ; 
It  may  be  short,  it  may  be  long, 
"'T  is  reckoning-day!"  sneers  unpaid 
Wrong. 

Spin,  spin,  Clotho,  spin  ! 

Lachesis,  twist  !  and,  Atropos,  sever  ! 

In  the  shadow,  year  out,  year  in, 

The  silent  headsman  waits  forever. 

The  Cock  that  wears  the  Eagle's  skin 
Can  promise  what  he  ne'er  could  win  ; 
Slavery  reaped  for  fine  words  sown, 


THE  MINER.  —  GOLD  EGG. 


369 


System  for  all,  and  rights  for  none, 
Despots  atop,  a  wild  clan  below, 
Such  is  the  Gaul  from  long  ago  ; 
Wash  the  black  from  the  Ethiop's  face, 
Wash  the  past  out  of  man  or  race  ! 

Spin,  spin,  Clotho,  spin  ! 

Lachesis,  twist  !  and,  Atropos,  sever ! 

In  the  shadow,  year  out,  year  in, 

The  silent  headsman  waits  forever. 


'Neath  Gregory's  throne  a  spider  swings, 
And  snares  the  people  for  the  kings  ; 
"  Luther  is  dead  ;  old  quarrels  pass  ; 
The  stake's  black  scars  are  healed  with 
grass"  ; 

So  dreamers  prate  ;  did  man  ere  live 
Saw  priest  or  woman  yet  forgive  ? 
But  Luther's  broom  is  left,  and  eyes 
Peep  o'er  their  creeds  to  where  it  lies. 

Spin,  spin,  Clotho,  spin ! 

Lachesis,  twist !  and,  Atropos,  sever ! 

In  the  shadow,  year  out,  year  in, 

The  silent  headsman  waits  forever. 

Smooth  sails  the  ship  of  either  realm, 
Kaiser  and  Jesuit  at  the  helm  ; 
We  look  down  the  depths,  and  mark 
Silent  workers  in  the  dark 
Building  slow  the  sharp-tusked  reefs, 
Old  instincts  hardening  to  new  beliefs  ; 
Patience  a  little  ;  learn  to  wait ; 
Hours  are  long  on  the  clock  of  Fate. 

Spin,  spin,  Clotho,  spin  ! 

Lachesis,  twist  !  and,  Atropos,  sever  ! 

Darkness  is  strong,  and  so  is  Sin, 

But  only  God  endures  forever ! 


THE  MINER. 

Down  mid  the  tangled  roots  of  things 
That  coil  about  the  central  fire, 

I  seek  for  that  which  giveth  wings 
To  stoop,  not  soar,  to  my  desire. 

Sometimes  I  hear,  as  't  were  a  sigh, 
The  sea's  deep  yearning  far  above, 

"  Thou  hast  the  secret  not,"  I  cry, 
"  In  deeper  deeps  is  hid  my  Love." 

They  think  I  burrow  from  the  sun, 
In  darkness,  all  alone,  and  weak  ; 

Such  loss  were  gain  if  He  were  won, 
For 't  is  the  sun's  own  Sun  I  seek. 


"The  earth,"  they  murmur,  "is  the 
tomb 

That  vainly  sought  his  life  to  prison  ; 
Why  grovel  longer  in  the  gloom  ? 
He  is  not  here  ;  he  hath  arisen." 

More  life  for  me  where  he  hath  lain 
Hidden  while  ye  believed  him  dead, 

Than  in  cathedrals  cold  and  vain, 
Built  on  loose  sands  of  It  is  said. 

My  search  is  for  the  living  gold  ; 

Him  I  desire  who  dwells  recluse, 
And  not  his  image  worn  and  old, 

Day-servant  of  our  sordid  use. 

If  him  I  find  not,  yet  I  find 

The  ancient  joy  of  cell  and  church, 

The  glimpse,  the  surety  undefined, 
The  unquenched  ardor  of  the  search. 

Happier  to  chase  a  flying  goal 

Than  to  sit  counting  laurelled  gains, 

To  guess  the  Soul  within  the  soul 
Than  to  be  lord  of  what  remains. 

Hide  still,  best  Good,  in  subtile  wise, 
Beyond  my  nature's  utmost  scope ; 

Be  ever  absent  from  mine  eyes 
To  be  twice  present  in  my  hope  ! 


GOLD  EGG:  A  DREAM-FANTASY. 

HOW  A  STUDENT  IN  SEARCH  OF  THE 
BEAUTIFUL  FELL  ASLEEP  IN  DRES- 
DEN OVER  HERR  PROFESSOR  DOCTOR 
vischer's  WISSENSCHAFT  DES  SCHO- 
NEN,  AND  WHAT  CAME  THEREOF. 

I  swam  with  undulation  soft, 

Adrift  on  Yischer's  ocean, 
And,  from  my  cockboat  up  aloft, 
Sent  down  my  mental  plummet  oft 

In  hope  to  reach  a  notion. 

But  from  the  metaphysic  sea 
No  bottom  was  forthcoming, 

And  all  the  while  (how  drearily  !) 

In  one  eternal  note  of  B 
My  German  stove  kept  humming. 

"What's  Beauty?"  mused  I;  "is  it 
told 

By  synthesis  ?  analysis  ? 


370  GOLD 

Have  you  not  made  us  lead  of  gold  ? 
To  feed  your  crucible,  not  sold 
Our  temple's  sacred  chalices  ?  " 

Then  o'er  my  senses  came  a  change  ; 

My  book  seemed  all  traditions, 
Old  legends  of  profoundest  range, 
Diablery,  and  stories  strange 

Of  goblins,  elves,  magicians. 

Old  gods  in  modern  saints  I  found, 
Old  creeds  in  strange  disguises  ; 
I  thought  them  safely  underground, 
And  here  they  were,  all  safe  and  sound, 
Without  a  sign  of  phthisis. 

Truth  was,  my  outward  eyes  were  closed, 

Although  I  did  not  know  it ; 
Deep  into  dream-land  I  had  dozed, 
And  so  was  happily  transposed 
From  proser  into  poet. 

So  what  I  read  took  flesh  and  blood, 

And  turned  to  living  creatures  : 
The  words  were  but  the  dingy  bud 
That  bloomed,  like  Adam,  from  the  mud, 
To  human  forms  and  features. 

I  saw  how  Zeus  was  lodged  once  more 

By  Baucis  and  Philemon  ; 
The  text  said,  "  Not  alone  of  yore, 
But  every  day,  at  every  door, 

Knocks  still  the  masking  Demon." 

Daimon 't  was  printed  in  the  book 

And,  as  I  read  it  slowly, 
The  letters  stirred  and  changed,  and 
took 

Jove's  stature,  the  Olympian  look 
Of  painless  melancholy. 

He  paused  upon  the  threshold  worn : 
"  With  coin  I  cannot  pay  you  ; 

Yet  would  I  fain  make  some  return  ; 

The  gift  for  cheapness  do  not  spurn, 
Accept  this  hen,  I  pray  you. 

"  Plain  feathers  wears  my  Hemera, 

And  has  from  ages  olden  ; 
She  makes  her  nest  in  common  hay, 
And  yet,  of  all  the  birds  that  lay, 

Her  eggs  alone  are  golden." 

He  turned,  and  could  no  more  be  seen ; 
Old  Baucis  stared  a  moment, 


EGG. 

Then  tossed  poor  Partlet  on  the  green, 
And  with  a  tone,  half  jest,  half  spleen, 
Thus  made    her    housewife's  com- 
ment : 

"The  stranger  had  a  queerish  face, 

His  smile  was  hardly  pleasant, 
And,  though  he  meant  it  for  a  grace, 
Yet  this  old  hen  of  barnyard  race 
Was  but  a  stingy  present. 

"She  's  quite  too  old  for  laying  eggs, 

Nay,  even  to  make  a  soup  of ; 
One  only  needs  to  see  her  legs,  — 
You  might  as  well  boil  down  the  pegs 
I  made  the  brood-hen's  coop  of ! 

"Some  eighteen  score  of  such  do  I 

Raise  every  year,  her  sisters  ; 
Go,  in  the  woods  your  fortunes  try, 
All  day  for  one  poor  earthworm  pry, 
And  scratch  your  toes  to  blisters  ! " 

Philemon  found  the  rede  was  good, 

And,  turning  on  the  poor  hen, 
He  clapt  his  hands,  and  stamped,  and 
shooed, 

Hunting  the  exile  tow'rd  the  wood, 
To  house  with  snipe  and  moor-hen. 

A  poet  saw  and  cried  :  "  Hold  !  hold  ! 

What  are  you  doing,  madman  ? 
Spurn  you  more  wealth  than  can  be 
told, 

The  fowl  that  lays  the  eggs  of  gold, 
Because  she 's  plainly  clad,  man  ?  " 

To  him  Philemon:  "I  '11  not  balk 

Thy  will  with  any  shackle ; 
Wilt  add  a  burden  to  thy  walk  ? 
There  !  take  her  without  further  talk ; 

You  're  both  but  fit  to  cackle  ! " 

But  scarce  the  poet  touched  the  bird, 

It  swelled  to  stature  regal ; 
And  when  her  cloud-wide  wings  she 
stirred, 

A  whisper  as  of  doom  was  heard, 
'T  was  Jove's  bolt-bearing  eagle. 

As  when  from  far-off  cloud-bergs  springs 

A  crag,  and,  hurtling  under, 
From  cliff  to  cliff  the  rumor  flings, 
So  she  from  flight-foreboding  wings 
Shook  out  a  murmurous  thunder. 


A  FAMILIAR  EPISTLE  TO  A  FRIEND. 


371 


She  gripped  the  poet  to  her  breast, 

And  ever,  upward  soaring, 
Earth  seemed  a  new  moon  in  the  west, 
And  then  one  light  among  the  rest 

Where  squadrons  lie  at  mooring. 

How  tell  to  what  heaven-hallowed  seat 

The  eagle  bent  his  courses  ? 
The  waves  that  on  its  bases  beat, 
The  gales  that  round  it  weave  and  fleet, 

Are  life's  creative  forces. 

Here  was  the  bird's  primeval  nest, 

High  on  a  promontory 
Star-pharosed,  where  she  takes  her  rest 
To  brood  new  seons  'neath  her  breast, 

The  future's  unfledged  glory. 

I  know  not  how,  but  I  was  there 

All  feeling,  hearing,  seeing  ; 
It  was  not  wind  that  stirred  my  hair 
But  living  breath,  the  essence  rare 
Of  unembodied  being. 

And  in  the  nest  an  egg  of  gold 
Lay  soft  in  self-made  lustre  ; 
Gazing  whereon,  what  depths  untold 
Within,  what  marvels  manifold, 
Seemed  silently  to  muster  ! 

Daily  such  splendors  to  confront 

Is  still  to  me  and  you  sent  ? 
It  glowed  as  when  Saint  Peter's  front, 
Illumed,  forgets  its  stony  wont, 

And  seems  to  throb  translucent. 

One  saw  therein  the  life  of  man, 

(Or  so  the  poet  found  it,) 
The  yolk  and  white,  conceive  who  can, 
Were  the  glad  earth,  that,  floating,  span 

In  the  glad  heaven  around  it. 

I  knew  this  as  one  knows  in  dream, 

Where  no  effects  to  causes 
Are  chained  as  in  our  work-day  scheme, 
And  then  was  wakened  by  a  scream 

That  seemed  to  come  from  Baucis. 

"Bless  Zeus!"  she  cried,  "I 'm  safe 
below ! " 

First  pale,  then  red  as  coral ; 
And  I,  still  drowsy,  pondered  slow. 
And  seemed  to  find,  but  hardly  know, 

Something  like  this  for  moral. 

Each  day  the  world  is  born  anew 
For  him  who  takes  it  rightly ; 


Not  fresher  that  which  Adam  knew, 
Not  sweeter  that  whose  moonlit  dew 
Entranced  Arcadia  nightly. 

Rightly  ?    That  's  simply :  't  is  to  see 
Some  substance  casts  these  shadows 
Which  we  call  Life  and  History, 
That  aimless  seem  to  chase  and  flee 
Like  wind-gleams*  over  meadows. 

Simply  ?    That 's  nobly  :  't  is  to  know 

That  God  may  still  be  met  with, 
Nor  groweth  old,  nor  doth  bestow 
These  senses  fine,  this  brain  aglow, 
To  grovel  and  forget  with. 

Beauty,  Herr  Doctor,  trust  in  me, 

No  chemistry  will  win  you  ; 
Charis  still  rises  from  the  sea  : 
If  you  can't  find  her,  might  it  be 
Because  you  seek  within  you  ? 


A  FAMILIAR  EPISTLE  TO  A  FRIEND. 

Alike  I  hate  to  be  your  debtor, 
Or  write  a  mere  perfunctory  letter  ; 
For  letters,  so  it  seems  to  me, 
Our  careless  quintessence  should  be, 
Our  real  nature's  truant  play 
When  Consciousness  looks  t'  other  way, 
Not  drop  by  drop,  with  watchful  skill, 
Gathered  in  Art's  deliberate  still, 
But  life's  insensible  completeness 
Got  as  the  ripe  grape  gets  its  sweetness, 
As  if  it  had  a  way  to  fuse 
The  golden  sunlight  into  juice. 
Hopeless  my  mental  pump  I  try; 
The  boxes  hiss,  the  tube  is  dry; 
As  those  petroleum  wells  that  spout 
Awhile  like  M.  C.'s,  then  give  out, 
My  spring,  once  full  as  Arethusa, 
Is  a  mere  bore  as  dry 's  Creusa ; 
And  yet  you  ask  me  why  I 'm  glum, 
And  why  my  graver  Muse  is  dumb. 
Ah  me  !  I 've  reasons  manifold 
Condensed  in  one,  —  I 'm  getting  old ! 

When  life,  once  past  its  fortieth  year, 
Wheels  up  its  evening  hemisphere, 
The  mind's  own  shadow,  which  the  boy 
Saw  onward  point  to  hope  and  joy, 
Shifts  round,  irrevocably  set 
Tow'rd  morning's  loss  and  vain  regret, 
And,  argue  with  it  as  we  will, 
The  clock  is  unconverted  still. 


372 


A  FAMILIAR  EPISTLE  TO  A  FRIEND. 


"  But  count  the  gains,"  I  hear  you  say, 
"  Which  far  the  seeming  loss  outweigh ; 
Friendships  built  firm  'gainst  flood  and 
wind 

On  rock-foundations  of  the  mind  ; 
Knowledge  instead  of  scheming  hope  ; 
For  wild  adventure,  settled  scope  ; 
Talents,  from  surface-ore  profuse, 
Tempered  and  edged  to  tools  for  use  ; 
Judgment,  for  passion's  headlong  whirls ; 
Old  sorrows  crystalled  into  pearls  ; 
Losses  by  patience  turned  to  gains, 
Possessions  now,  that  once  were  pains ; 
Joy's  blossom  gone,  as  go  it  must, 
To  ripen  seeds  of  faith  and  trust ; 
Why  heed  a  snow-flake  on  the  roof 
If  fire  within  keep  Age  aloof 
Though  blundering  north-winds  push 

and  strain 
With  palms  benumbed  against  the  pane  ? ' ' 

My  dear  old  Friend,  you  're  very  wise  ; 
We  always  are  with  others'  eyes, 
And  see  so  clear  !  (our  neighbor's  deck 
on) 

What  reef  the  idiot 's  sure  to  wreck  on ; 
Folks  when  they  learn  how  life  has 

quizzed  'em 
Are  fain  to  make  a  shift  with  Wisdom, 
And,  finding  she  nor  breaks  nor  bends, 
Give  her  a  letter  to  their  friends. 
Draw  passion's  torrent  whoso  will 
Through  sluices  smooth  to  turn  a  mill, 
And,  taking  solid  toll  of  grist, 
Forget  the  rainbow  in  the  mist, 
The  exulting  leap,  the  aimless  haste 
Scattered  in  iridescent  waste  ; 
Prefer  who  likes  the  sure  esteem 
To  cheated  youth's  midsummer  dream, 
When  every  friend  was  more  than 

Damon, 

Each  quicksand  safe  to  build  a  fame  on  ; 
Believe  that  prudence  snug  excels 
Youth's  gross  of  verdant  spectacles, 
Through  which  earth's  withered  stubble 
seen 

Looks  autumn-proof  as  painted  green,  — 
I  side  with  Moses  'gainst  the  masses, 
Take  you  the  drudge,  give  me  the 
glasses  ! 

And,  for  your  talents  shaped  with  prac- 
tice, 

Convince  me  first  that  such  the  fact  is  ; 
Let  whoso  likes  be  beat,  poor  fool, 
On  life's  hard  stithy  to  a  tool, 
Be  whoso  will  a  ploughshare  made, 
Let  me  remain  a  jolly  blade  ! 


What 's  Knowledge,  with  her  stocks  and 
lands, 

To  gay  Conjecture's  yellow  strands  ? 
What 's  watching  her  slow  flocks  in- 
crease 

To  ventures  for  the  golden  fleece  ? 
What  her  deep  ships,  safe  under  lee, 
To  youth's  light  craft,  that  drinks  the 
sea, 

For  Flying  Islands  making  sail, 
And  failing  where 't  is  gain  to  fail  ? 
Ah  me  !  Expereince  (so  we  're  told), 
Time's  crucible,  turns  lead  to  gold  ; 
Yet  what 's  experience  won  but  dross, 
Cloud-gold  transmuted  to  our  loss  ? 
What  but  base  coin  the  best  event 
To  the  untried  experiment  ? 

'T  was  an  old  couple,  says  the  poet, 
That  lodged  the  gods  and  did  not  know 
it ; 

Youth  sees  and  knows  them  as  they 
were 

Before  Olympus'  top  was  bare  ; 
From  Swampscot's  flats  his  eye  divine 
Sees  Venus  rocking  on  the  brine, 
With  lucent  limbs,  that  somehow  scat- 
ter a 

Charm  that  turns  Doll  to  Cleopatra  ; 
Bacchus  (that  now  is  scarce,  induced 
To  give  Eld's  lagging  blood  a  boost), 
With  cymbals'  clang  and  pards  to  draw 
him, 

Divine  as  Ariadne  saw  him, 
Storms  through  Youth's  pulse  with  all 
his  train 

And  wins  new  Indies  in  his  brain ; 
Apollo  (with  the  old  a  trope, 
A  sort  of  finer  Mister  Pope), 
Apollo  —  but  the  Muse  forbids  ; 
At  his  approach  cast  down  thy  lids, 
And  think  it  joy  enough  to  hear 
Far  off  his  arrows  singing  clear  ; 
He  knows  enough  who  silent  knows 
The  quiver  chiming  as  he  goes  ; 
He  tells  too  much  who  e'er  betrays 
The  shining  Archer's  secret  ways. 

Dear  Friend,  you  're  right  and  I  am 
wrong ; 

My  quibbles  are  not  worth  a  song, 

And  I  sophistically  tease 

My  fancy  sad  to  tricks  like  these. 

I  could  not  cheat  you  if  I  would  ; 

You  know  me  and  my  jesting  mood, 

Mere  surface-foam,  for  pride  concealing 

The  purpose  of  my  deeper  feeling. 


AN  EMBER  PICTURE. 


373 


I  have  not  spilt  one  drop  of  joy 
Poured  in  the  senses  of  the  boy, 
Nor  Nature  fails  my  walks  to  bless 
With  all  her  golden  inwardness  ; 
And  as  blind  nestlings,  unafraid, 
Stretch  up  wide -mouthed  to  every  shade 
By  which  their  downy  dream  is  stirred, 
Taking  it  for  the  mother-bird, 
So,  when  God's  shadow,  which  is  light, 
Unheralded,  by  day  or  night, 
My  wakening  instincts  falls  across, 
Silent  as  sunbeams  over  moss, 
In  my  heart's  nest  half-conscious  things 
Stir  with  a  helpless  sense  of  wings, 
Lift  themselves  up,  and  tremble  long 
With  premonitions  sweet  of  song. 

Be  patient,  and  perhaps  (who  knows  ?) 
These  may  be  winged  one  day  like 
those ; 

If  thrushes,  close-embowered  to  sing, 
Pierced  through  with  June's  delicious 
sting ; 

If  swallows,  their  half-hour  to  run 
Star-breasted  in  the  setting  sun. 
At  first  they  're  but  the  unfledged  proem, 
Or  songless  schedule  of  a  poem  ; 
When  from  the  shell  they  're  hardly  dry 
If  some  folks  thrust  them  forth,  must  1  ? 

But  let  me  end  with  a  comparison 
Never  yet  hit  upon  by  e'er  a  son 
Of  our  American  Apollo, 
(And  there 's  where  I  shall  beat  them 
hollow, 

If  he  is  not  a  courtly  St.  John, 
But,  as  West  said,  a  Mohawk  Injun.) 
A  poem 's  like  a  cruise  for  whales  : 
Through  untried  seas  the  hunter  sails, 
His  prow  dividing  waters  known 
To  the  blue  iceberg's  hulk  alone  ; 
At  last,  on  farthest  edge  of  day, 
He  marks  the  smoky  puff  of  spray ; 
Then  with  bent  oars  the  shallop  flies 
To  where  the  basking  quarry  lies  ; 
Then  the  excitement  of  the  strife, 
The  crimsoned  waves,  —  ah,  this  is  life  ! 

But,  the  dead  plunder  once  secured 
And  safe  beside  the  vessel  moored, 
All  that  had  stirred  the  blood  before 
Is  so  much  blubber,  nothing  more, 
(I  mean  no  pun,  nor  image  so 
Mere  sentimental  verse,  you  know,) 
And  all  is  tedium,  smoke,  and  soil, 
In  trying  out  the  noisome  oil. 


Yes,  this  is  life  !    And  so  the  bard 
Through  briny  deserts,  never  scarred 
Since  Noah's  keel,  a  subject  seeks, 
And  lies  upon  the  watch  for  weeks  ; 
That  once  harpooned  and  helpless  lying, 
What  follows  is  but  weary  trying. 

Now  I  've  a  notion,  if  a  poet 
Beat  up  for  themes,  his  verse  will  show 
it; 

I  wait  for  subjects  that  hunt  me, 
By  day  or  night  won't  let  me  be, 
And  hang  about  me  like  a  curse, 
Till  they  have  made  me  into  verse, 
From  line  to  line  my  fingers  tease 
Beyond  my  knowledge,  as  the  bees 
Build  no  new  cell  till  those  before 
With  limpid  summer-sweet  run  o'er  ; 
Then,  if  I  neither  sing  nor  shine, 
Is  it  the  subject's  fault,  or  mine  ? 


AN  EMBER  PICTURE. 

How  strange  are  the  freaks  of  memory ! 

The  lessons  of  life  we  forget, 
While  a  trifle,  a  trick  of  color, 

In  the  wonderful  web  is  set,  — 

Set  by  some  mordant  of  fancy, 
And,  spite  of  the  wear  and  tear 

Of  time  or  distance  or  trouble, 
Insists  on  its  right  to  be  there. 

A  chance  had  brought  us  together  ; 

Our  talk  was  of  matters-of-course  ; 
We  were  nothing,  one  to  the  other, 

But  a  short  half-hour's  resource. 

We  spoke  of  French  acting  and  actors, 
And  their  easy,  natural  way  : 

Of  the  weather,  for  it  was  raining 
As  we  drove  home  from  the  play. 

We  debated  the  social  nothings 
We  bore  ourselves  so  to  discuss  ; 

The  thunderous  rumors  of  battle 
Were  silent  the  while  for  us. 

Arrived  at  her  door,  we  left  her 

With  a  drippingly  hurried  adieu, 
And  our  wheels  went  crunching  the 
gravel 

Of  the  oak-darkened  avenue. 

As  we  drove  away  through  the  shadow, 
The  candle  she  held  in  the  door 


374  to  h. 

From  rain-varnished  tree-trunk  to  tree- 
trunk 

Flashed    fainter,  and    flashed  no 
more  ;  — 

Flashed  fainter,  then  wholly  faded 
Before  we  had  passed  the  wood  ; 

But  the  light  of  the  face  behind  it 
Went  with  me  and  stayed  for  good. 

The  vision  of  scarce  a  moment, 
And  hardly  marked  at  the  time, 

It  comes  unbidden  to  haunt  me, 
Like  a  scrap  of  ballad-rhyme. 

Had  she  beauty  ?    Well,  not  what  they 
call  so  ; 

You  may  find  a  thousand  as  fair ; 
And  yet  there  's  her  face  in  my  memory 
With  no  special  claim  to  be  there. 

As  I  sit  sometimes  in  the  twilight, 
And  call  back  to  life  in  the  coals 

Old  faces  and  hopes  and  fancies 

Long  buried,   (good  rest  to  their 
souls  !) 

Her  face  shines  out  in  the  embers  ; 

I  see  her  holding  the  light, 
And  hear  the  crunch  of  the  gravel 

And  the  sweep  of  the  rain  that  night. 

'T  is  a  face  that  can  never  grow  older, 
That  never  can  part  with  its  gleam, 

'T  is  a  gracious  possession  forever, 
For  is  it  not  all  a  dream  ? 

TO  H.  W.  L., 

ON   HIS    BIRTHDAY,     27TH  FEBRUARY, 
1867. 

I  need  not  praise  the  sweetness  of  his 
song, 

Where  limpid  verse  to  limpid  verse 
succeeds 

Smooth  as  our  Charles,  when,  fearing 

lest  he  wrong 
The  new  moon's  mirrored  skiff,  he  slides 

along, 

Full  without  noise,  and  whispers  in 
his  reeds. 

With  loving  breath  of  all  the  winds  his 
name 

Is  blown  about  the  world,  but  to  his 
friends 


W.  L. 

A  sweeter  secret  hides  behind  his  fame, 
And  Love  steals  shyly  through  the  loud 
acclaim 

To  murmur  a  God  bless  you!  and  there 
ends. 

As  I  muse  backward  up  the  checkered 

years 

Wherein  so  much  was  given,  so  much 
was  lost, 

Blessings  in  both  kinds,  such  as  cheapen 
tears,  — 

But  hush  !  this  is  not  for  profaner  ears ; 
Let  them  drink  molten  pearls  nor 
dream  the  cost. 

Some  suck  up  poison  from  a  sorrow's 
core, 

As  naught  but  nightshade  grew  upon 
earth's  ground  ; 
Love  turned  all  his  to  heart's-ease,  and 
the  more 

Fate  tried  his  bastions,  she  but  forced  a 
door 

Leading  to  sweeter  manhood  and  more 
sound. 

Even  as  a  wind- waved  fountain's  sway- 
ing shade 
Seems  of  mixed  race,  a  gray  wraith 
shot  with  sun, 

So  through  his  trial  faith  translucent 
rayed 

Till  darkness,  half  disnatured  so,  be- 
trayed 

A  heart  of  sunshine  that  would  fain 
o'errun. 

Surely  if  skill  in  song  the  shears  may 
stay 

And  of  its  purpose  cheat  the  charmed 

abyss, 

If  our  poor  life  be  lengthened  by  a  lay, 
He  shall  not  go,  although  his  presence 
may, 

And  the  next  age  in  praise  shall 
double  this. 

Long  days  be  his,  and  each  as  lusty- 
sweet 

As  gracious  natures  find  his  song  to 
be  ; 

May  Age  steal  on  with  softly-cadenced 
feet 

Falling  in  music,  as  for  him  were  meet 
Whose  choicest  verse  is  harsher-toned 
than  he ! 


THE  NIGHTINGALE  IN  THE  STUDY.  —  IN  THE  TWILIGHT.  375 


THE  NIGHTINGALE  IN  THE  STUDY. 

"  Come  forth  !  "  my  catbird  calls  to  me, 
"  And  hear  me  sing  a  cavatina 

That,  in  this  old  familiar  tree, 
Shall  hang  a  garden  of  Alcina. 

"  These  buttercups  shall  brim  with  wine 
Beyond  all  Lesbian  juice  or  Massic  ; 

May  not  New  England  be  divine  ? 
My  ode  to  ripening  summer  classic  ? 

"  Or,  if  to  me  you  will  not  hark, 
By  Beaver  Brook  a  thrush  is  ringing 

Till  all  the  alder- coverts  dark 

Seem  sunshine-dappled  with  his  sing- 
ing. 

"  Come  out  beneath  the  unmastered  sky, 
With  its  emancipating  spaces, 

And  learn  to  sing  as  well  as  I, 
Without  premeditated  graces. 

"  What  boot  your  many-volumed  gains, 
Those  withered  leaves  forever  turning, 

To  win,  at  best,  for  all  your  pains, 
A  nature  mummy-wrapt  in  learning  ? 

'  *  The  leaves  wherein  true  wisdom  lies 
On  living  trees  the  sun  are  drinking  ; 

Those  white  clouds,  drowsing  through 
the  skies, 
Grew  not  so  beautiful  by  thinking. 

"  Come  out !  with  me  the  oriole  cries, 
Escape  the  demon  that  pursues  you  ! 

And,  hark,  the  cuckoo  weatherwise, 
Still  hiding,   farther  onward  wooes 
you." 

"  Alas,  *dear  friend,  that,  all  my  days, 
Has  poured  from  that  syringa  thicket 

The  quaintly  discontinuous  lays 
To  which  I  hold  a  season-ticket, 

"  A  season-ticket  cheaply  bought 
With  a  dessert  of  pilfered  berries, 

And  who  so  oft  my  soul  hast  caught 
With  morn  and  evening  voluntaries, 

' '  Deem  me  not  faithless,  if  all  day 
Among  my  dusty  books  I  linger, 

No  pipe,  like  thee,  for  June  to  play 
With  fancy -led,  half-conscious  finger. 

"  A  bird  is  singing  in  my  brain 
And  bubbling  o'er  with  mingled  fan- 
cies, 


Gay,  tragic,  rapt,  right  heart  of  Spain 
Fed  with  the  sap  of  old  romances. 

"  I  ask  no  ampler  skies  than  those 
His  magic  music  rears  above  me, 

No  falser  friends,  no  truer  foes,  — 
And  does  not  Dona  Clara  love  me? 

"  Cloaked  shapes,  a  twanging  of  guitars, 
A  rush  of  feet,  and  rapiers  clashing, 

Then  silence  deep  with  breathless  stars, 
And  overhead  a  white  hand  flashing. 

"  0  music  of  all  moods  and  climes, 

Vengeful,  forgiving,  sensuous,  saintly, 
Where    still,   between   the  Christian 
chimes, 

The  moorish  cymbal  tinkles  faintly ! 

"  0  life  borne  lightly  in  the  hand, 
For  friend  or  foe  with  grace  Castilian  ! 

0  valley  safe  in  Fancy's  land, 

Not  tramped  to  mud  yet  by  the  mil- 
lion ! 

"  Bird  of  to-day,  thy  songs  are  stale 
To  his,  my  singer  of  all  weathers, 

My  Calderon,  my  nightingale, 

My  Arab  soul  in  Spanish  feathers. 

1 4  Ah,  friend,  these  singers  dead  so  long, 
And  still,  God  knows,  in  purgatory, 

Give  its  best  sweetness  to  all  song, 
To  Nature's  self  her  better  glory." 


IN  THE  TWILIGHT. 

Men  say  the  sullen  instrument, 
That,  from  the  Master's  bow, 
With  pangs  of  joy  or  woe, 

Feels  music's  soul  through  every  fibre 
sent, 

Whispers  the  ravished  strings 
More  than  he  knew  or  meant ; 

Old  summers  in  its  memory  glow ; 
The  secrets  of  the  wind  it  sings ; 
It  hears  the  April -loosened  springs ; 
And  mixes  with  its  mood 
All  it  dreamed  when  it  stood 
In  the  murmurous  pine-wood 
Long  ago  ! 

The  magical  moonlight  then 
Steeped  every  bough  and  cone ; 


376 


THE  FOOT-PATH. 


The  roar  of  the  brook  in  the  glen 

Came  dim  from  the  distance  blown ; 
The  wind  through  its  glooms  sang  low, 
And  it  swayed  to  and  fro 
With  delight  as  it  stood, 
In  the  wonderful  wood, 
Long  ago  ! 

0  my  life,  have  we  not  had  seasons 

That  only  said,  Live  and  rejoice  ? 
That  asked  not  for  causes  and  reasons, 

But  made  us  all  feeling  and  voice  ? 
When  we  went  with  the  winds  in  their 
blowing, 

When  Nature  and  we  were  peers, 
And  we  seemed  to  share  in  the  flowing 

Of  the  inexhaustible  years  ? 

Have  we  not  from  the  earth  drawn 
juices 

Too  fine  for  earth's  sordid  uses  ? 
Have  I  heard,  have  I  seen 

All  I  feel  and  I  know? 
Doth  my  heart  overween  ? 
Or  could  it  have  been 
Long  ago  ? 

Sometimes  a  breath  floats  by  me, 
An  odor  from  Dreamland  sent, 
That  makes  the  ghost  seem  nigh  me 

Of  a  splendor  that  came  and  went, 
Of  a  life  lived  somewhere,  I  know  not 

In  what  diviner  sphere, 
Of  memories  that  stay  not  and  go  not, 
Like  music  heard  once  by  an  ear 
That  cannot  forget  or  reclaim  it, 
A  something  so  shy,  it  would  shame 
it 

To  make  it  a  show, 
A  something  too  vague,  could  I 
name  it, 
For  others  to  know, 
As  if  I  had  lived  it  or  dreamed  it, 
As  if  I  had  acted  or  schemed  it, 
Long  ago  ! 

And  yet,  could  I  live  it  over, 

This  life  that  stirs  in  my  brain, 
Could  I  be  both  maiden  and  lover, 
Moon  and  tide,  bee  and  clover, 

As  I  seem  to  have  been,  once  again, 
Could  I  but  speak  and  show  it, 

This  pleasure  more  sharp  than  pain, 
That  baffles  and  lures  me  so, 
The  world  should  not  lack  a  poet, 
Such  as  it  had 
In  the  ages  glad, 

Long  ago  ! 


THE  FOOT-PATH. 

It  mounts  athwart  the  windy  hill 
Through  sallow  slopes  of  upland  bare, 

And  Fancy  climbs  with  foot-fall  still 
Its  narrowing  curves  that  end  in  air. 

By  day,  a  warmer-hearted  blue 

Stoops  softly  to  that  topmost  swell ; 

Its  thread-like  windings  seem  a  clew 
To  gracious  climes  where  all  is  well. 

By  night,  far  yonder,  I  surmise 
An  ampler  world  than  clips  my  ken, 

Where  the  great  stars  of  happier  skies 
Commingle  nobler  fates  of  men. 

I  look  and  long,  then  haste  me  home, 
Still  master  of  my  secret  rare ; 

Once  tried,  the  path  would  end  in  Koine, 
But  now  it  leads  me  everywhere. 

Forever  to  the  new  it  guides, 

From  former  good,  old  overmuch ; 

What  Nature  for  her  poets  hides, 
'T  is  wiser  to  divine  than  clutch. 

The  bird  I  list  hath  never  come 
Within  the  scope  of  mortal  ear  ; 

My  prying  step  would  make  him  dumb, 
And  the  fair  tree,  his  shelter,  sear. 

Behind  the  hill,  behind  the  sky, 

Behind  my  inmost  thought,  he  sings ; 

No  feet  avail ;  to  hear  it  nigh, 

The  song  itself  must  lend  the  wings. 

Sing  on,  sweet  bird  close  hid,  and  raise 
Those  angel  stairways  in  my  brain, 

That  climb  from  these  low-vaulted  days 
To  spacious  sunshines  far  from  pain. 

Sing  when  thou  wilt,  enchantment  fleet, 
I  leave  thy  covert  haunt  untrod, 

And  envy  Science  not  her  feat 
To  make  a  twice-told  tale  of  God. 

They  said  the  fairies  tript  no  more, 
And  long  ago  that  Pan  was  dead  ; 

'T  was  but  that  fools  preferred  to  bore 
Earth's  rind  inch-deep  for  truth  in- 
stead. 

Pan  leaps  and  pipes  all  summer  long, 
The  fairies  dance  each  full-mooned 
night, 

Would  we  but  doff  our  lenses  strong, 
And  trust  our  wiser  eyes'  delight. 


THE  FOOT-PATH. 


377 


City  of  Elf-land,  just  without 
Our  seeing,  marvel  ever  new, 

Glimpsed  in  fair  weather,  a  sweet  doubt 
Sketched-in,  mirage-like,  on  the  blue. 

I  build  thee  in  yon  sunset  cloud, 

Whose  edge  allures  to  climb  the 
height ; 

I  hear  thy  drowned  bells,  inly-loud, 
From  still  pools  dusk  with  dreams  of 
night. 

Thy  gates  are  shut  to  hardiest  will, 
Thy  countersign  of  long-lost  speech,  — 


Those  fountained  courts,  those  chambers 
still, 

Fronting  Time's  far  East,  who  shall 
reach  ? 

I  know  not,  and  will  never  pry, 
But  trust  our  human  heart  tor  all ; 

Wonders  that  from  the  seeker  fly 
Into  an  open  sense  may  fall. 

Hide  in  thine  own  soul,  and  surprise 
The  password  of  the  unwary  elves  ; 

Seek  it,  thou  canst  not  bribe  their  spies ; 
Unsought,  they  whisper  it  themselves. 


/ 


POEMS  OF  THE  WAR. 


THE  WASHERS  OF  THE  SHROUD. 

October,  1861. 

Along  a  river-side,  I  know  not  where, 
1  walked  one  night  in  mystery  of  dream  ; 
A  chill  creeps  curdling  yet  beneath  my 
hair, 

To  think  what  chanced  me  by  the  pallid 

gleam 

Of  a  moon -wraith  that  waned  through 
haunted  air. 

Pale  fireflies  pulsed  within  the  meadow- 
mist 

Their  halos,  wavering  thistledowns  of 
light  ; 

The  loon,  that  seemed  to  mock  some 

goblin  tryst, 
Laughed  ;  and  the  echoes,  huddling  in 

affright, 

Like  Odin's  hounds,  fled  baying  down 
the  night. 

Then  all  was  silent,  till  there  smote  my 

ear 

A  movement  in  the  stream  that  checked 

my  breath : 
Was  it  the  slow  plash  of  a  wading  deer  ? 
But  something  said,  "This  water  is  of 

Death  ! 

The  Sisters  wash  a  shroud,  —  ill  thing 
to  hear ! " 

I,  looking  then,  beheld  the  ancient 
Three 

Known  to  the  Greek's  and  to  the  North- 
man's creed, 

That  sit  in  shadow  of  the  mystic  Tree, 

Still  crooning,  as  they  weave  their  end- 
less brede, 

One  song:  "Time  was,  Time  is,  and 
Time  shall  be." 


No  wrinkled  crones  were  they,  as  I  had 

deemed, 

But  fair  as  yesterday,  to-day,  to-morrow, 
To  mourner,  lover,  poet,  ever  seemed  ; 
Something  too  high  for  joy,  too  deep  for 
sorrow, 

Thrilled  in  their  tones,  and  from  their 
faces  gleamed. 

"Still  men  and  nations  reap  as  they 

have  strawn," 
So  sang  they,  working  at  their  task  the 

while  ; 

"The  fatal  raiment  must  be  cleansed  ere 
dawn  : 

For  Austria  ?    Italy  ?  the  Sea-Queen's 
isle  ? 

O'er  what  quenched  grandeur  must  our 
shroud  be  drawn  ? 

"  Or  is  it  for  a  younger,  fairer  corse, 
That  gathered  States  like  children  round 
his  knees, 

That  tamed  the  wave  to  be  his  posting- 
horse, 

Feller  of  forests,  linker  of  the  seas, 
Bridge-builder,  hammerer,  youngest  son 
of  Thor's  ? 

"  What  make  we,  murmur' st  thou  ?  and 

what  are  we  ? 
When  empires  must  be  wound,  we  bring 

the  shroud, 
The  time- old  web  of  the  implacable 

Three : 

Is  it  too  coarse  for  him,  the  young  and 
proud  ? 

Earth's  mightiest  deigned  to  wear  it,  — 
why  not  he  ? 

"Is  there  no  hope?"  I  moaned,  "so 

strong,  so  fair  ! 
Our  Fowler  whose  proud  bird  would 

brook  erewhile 


THE  WASHERS 

No  rival's  swoop  in  all  our  western  air  ! 
Gather  the  ravens,  then,  in  funeral  file 
For  him,  life's  mom  yet  golden  in  his 
hair  ? 

"  Leave  me  not  hopeless,  ye  unpitying 
dames  ! 

I  see,  half  seeing.  Tell  me,  ye  who 
scanned 

The  stars,  Earth's  elders,  still  must  no- 
blest aims 

Be  traced  upon  oblivious  ocean-sands  ? 

Must  Hesper  join  the  wailing  ghosts  of 
names  ? " 

"When  grass-blades  stiffen  with  red 

battle-dew, 
Ye  deem  we  choose  the  victor  and  the 

slain  : 

Say,  choose  we  them  that  shall  be  leal 
and  true 

To  the  heart's  longing,  the  high  faith  of 
brain  ? 

Yet  there  the  victory  lies,  if  ye  but 
knew. 

"Three  roots    bear    up  Dominion: 

Knowledge,  Will,  — 
These  twain  are  strong,  but  stronger  yet 

the  third,  — 
Obedience,  —  't  is  the  great  tap-root  that 

still, 

Knit  round  the  rock  of  Duty,  is  not 
stirred, 

Though  Heaven -loosed  tempests  spend 
their  utmost  skill. 

"  Is  the  doom  sealed  for  Hesper  ?  'T  is 
not  we 

Denounce  it,  but  the  Law  before  all 
time  : 

The  brave  makes  danger  opportunity  ; 
The  waverer,  paltering  with  the  chance 
sublime, 

Dwarfs  it  to  peril :  which  shall  Hesper 
be? 

"  Hath  he  let  vultures  climb  his  eagle's 
seat 

To  make  Jove's  bolts  purveyors  of  their 
maw  ? 

Hath  he  the  Many's  plaudits  found  more 
sweet 

Than  Wisdom  ?  held  Opinion's  wind  for 
Law  ? 

Then  let  him  hearken  for  the  doomster's 
feet  ! 


OF  THE  SHROUD.  379 

"Rough  are  the  steps,  slow-hewn  in 

flintiest  rock, 
States  climb  to  power  by  ;  slippery  those 
with  gold 

Down  which  they  stumble  to  eternal 
mock  : 

No  chafferer's  hand  shall  long  the  scep- 
tre hold, 

Who,  given  a  Fate  to  shape,  would  sell 
the  block. 

"  We  sing  old  Sagas,  songs  of  weal  and 
woe, 

Mystic  because  too  cheaply  understood  ; 
Dark  sayings  are  not  ours  ;  men  hear 

and  know, 
See  Evil  weak,  see  strength  alone  in 
Good, 

Yet  hope  to  stem  God's  fire  with  walls  of 
tow. 

"  Time  Was  unlocks  the  riddle  of  Time 
Is, 

That  offers  choice  of  glory  or  of  gloom  ; 
The  solver  makes  Time  Shall  Be  surely 
his. 

But  hasten,  Sisters  !  for  even  now  the 
tomb 

Grates  its  slow  hinge  and  calls  from  the 
abyss." 

"But  not  for  him,"  I  cried,  "not  yet 
for  him, 

Whose  large  horizon,  westering,  star  by 
star 

Wins  from  the  void  to  where  on  Ocean's 
rim 

The  sunset  shuts  the  world  with  golden 
bar, 

Not  yet  his  thews  shall  fail,  his  eye  grow 
dim ! 

"His  shall  be  larger  manhood,  saved 
for  those 

That  walk  unblenching  through  the 

trial-fires ; 
Not  suffering,  but  faint  heart,  is  worst 
of  woes, 

And  he  no  base-born  son  of  craven  sires, 
Whose  eye  need  blench  confronted  with 
his  foes. 

"  Tears  may  be  ours,  but  proud,  for  those 
who  win 

Death's  royal  purple  in  the  foeman's 
lines  ; 


/ 


380 


TWO  SCENES  FROM  THE  LIFE  OF  BLONDEL. 


Peace,  too,  brings  tears ;  and  mid  the 

battle-din, 
The  wiser  ear  some  text  of  God  divines, 
For  the  sheathed  blade  may  rust  with 

darker  sin. 

"  God,  give  us  peace  !  not  such  as  lulls 
to  sleep, 

But  sword  on  thigh,  and  brow  with  pur- 
pose knit ! 

And  let  our  Ship  of  State  to  harbor 
sweep, 

Her  ports  all  up,  her  battle-lanterns  lit, 
And  her  leashed  thunders  gathering  for 
their  leap  ! " 

So  cried  I  with  clenched  hands  and  pas- 
sionate pain, 

Thinking  of  dear  ones  by  Potomac's  side ; 

Again  the  loon  laughed  mocking,  and 
again 

The  echoes  bayed  far  down  the  night 
and  died, 

While  waking  I  recalled  my  wandering 
brain. 


TWO  SCENES  FROM  THE  LIFE  OF 
BLONDEL. 

Autumn,  1863. 

Scene  I.  —  Near  a  castle  in  Germany. 

'T  were  no  hard  task,  perchance,  to  win 

The  popular  laurel  for  my  song  ; 
'T  were  only  to  comply  with  sin, 

And  own  the  crown,  though  snatched 
by  wrong  : 
Rather  Truth's  chaplet  let  me  wear, 
Though  sharp  as  death  its  thorns  may 
sting ; 

Loyal  to  Loyalty,  I  bear 
No  badge  but  of  my  rightful  king. 

Patient  by  town  and  tower  I  wait, 

Or  o'er  the  blustering  moorland  go  ; 
I  buy  no  praise  at  cheaper  rate, 

Or  what  faint  hearts  may  fancy  so  ; 
For  me,  no  joy  in  lady's  bower, 

Or  hall,  or  tourney,  will  I  sing, 
Till  the  slow  stars  wheel  round  the  hour 

That  crowns  my  hero  and  my  king. 

While  all  the  land  runs  red  with  strife, 
And  wealth  is  won  by  pedler-crimes, 
Let  who  will  find  content  in  life 


And  tinkle  in  unmanly  rhymes; 
I  wait  and  seek  ;  through  dark  and 
light, 

Safe  in  my  heart  my  hope  I  bring, 
Till  I  once  more  my  faith  may  plight 
To  him  my  whole  soul  owns  her  king. 

When  power  is  filched  by  drone  and 
dolt, 

And,  with  caught  breath  and  flashing 

eye, 

Her  knuckles  whitening  round  the  bolt, 
Vengeance  leans  eager  from  the  sky, 

While  this  and  that  the  people  guess, 
And  to  the  skirts  of  praters  cling, 

Who  court  the  crowd  they  should  com- 
press, 

I  turn  in  scorn  to  seek  my  king. 

Shut  in  what  tower  of  darkling  chance 
Or  dungeon  of  a  narrow  doom, 

Dream'st  thou  of  battle-axe  and  lance 
That  for  the  Cross  make  crashing 
room  ? 

Come  !  with  hushed  breath  the  battle 
waits 

In  the  wild  van  thy  mace's  swing ; 
While  doubters  parley  with  their  fates, 
Make  thou  thine  own  and  ours,  my 
king ! 

0,  strong  to  keep  upright  the  old, 

And  wise  to  buttress  with  the  new, 
Prudent,  as  only  are  the  bold, 

Clear-eyed,  as  only  are  the  true, 
To  foes  benign,  to  friendship  stern, 

Intent  to  imp  Law's  broken  wing, 
Who  would  not  die,  if  death  might  earn 

The  right  to  kiss  thy  hand,  my  king  ? 


Scene  II.  — An  Inn  near  the  Ch&teau 
of  Chahcs, 

Well,  the  whole  thing  is  over,  and  here 
I  sit 

With  one  arm  in  a  sling  and  a  milk- 
score  of  gashes, 
And  this  flagon  of  Cyprus  must  e'en 
warm  my  wit, 
Since  what 's  left  of  youth's  flame  is  a 
head  flecked  with  ashes. 
I  remember  I  sat  in  this  very  same 
inn,  — 

I  was  young  then,  and  one  young  man 
thought  I  was  handsome,  — 


MEMORISE 

I  had  found  out  what  prison  King 
Richard  was  in, 
And  was  spurring  for  England  to  push 
on  the  ransom. 

How  I  scorned  the  dull  souls  that  sat 
guzzling  around 
And  knew  not  my  secret  nor  recked 
my  derision  ! 
Let  the  world  sink  or  swim,  John  or 
Richard  be  crowned, 
All  one,  so  the  beer-tax  got  lenient 
revision. 

How  little  I  dreamed,  as  I  tramped  up 
and  down, 
That  granting  our  wish  one  of  Fate's 
saddest  jokes  is  ! 
I  had  mine  with  a  vengeance,  —  my 
king  got  his  crown, 
And  made  his  whole  business  to  break 
other  folks' s. 

I  might  as  well  join  in  the  safe  old  turn, 
turn : 

A  hero 's  an  excellent  loadstar,  —  but, 
bless  ye, 

What  infinite  odds  'twixt  a  hero  to  come 
And  your  only  too  palpable  heromesse/ 
Precisely  the  odds  (such  examples  are 
rife) 

'Twixt  the  poem  conceived  and  the 
rhyme  we  make  show  of, 
'Twixt  the  boy's  morning  dream  and  the 
wake-up  of  life, 

'Twixt  the  Blondel  God  meant  and  a 
Blondel  1  know  of  ! 

But  the  world 's  better  off,  I 'm  con- 
vinced of  it  now, 
Than  if  heroes,  like  buns,  could  be 
bought  for  a  penny 
To  regard  all  mankind  as  their  haltered 
milch-cow, 
And  just  care  for  themselves.  Well, 
God  cares  for  the  many  ; 
For  somehow  the  poor  old  Earth  blun- 
ders along, 
Each  son  of  hers  adding  his  mite  of 
unfitness, 

And,  choosing  the  sure  way  of  coming 
out  wrong, 
Gets  to  port  as  the  next  generation 
will  witness. 

You  think  her  old  ribs  have  come  all 
crashing  through, 
If  a  whisk  of  Fate's  broom  snap  your 
cobweb  asunder  ; 


POSITUM.  381 

But  her  rivets  were  clinched  by  a  wiser 
than  you, 

And  our  sins  cannot  push  the  Lord's 
right  hand  from  under. 
Better  one  honest  man  who  can  wait  for 
God's  mind 
In  our  poor  shifting  scene  here  though 
heroes  were  plenty  ! 
Better  one  bite,  at  forty,  of  Truth's  bitter 
rind, 

Than  the  hot  wine  that  gushed  from 
the  vintage  of  twenty  ! 

I  see  it  all  now  :  when  I  wanted  a  king, 
'T  was  the  kingship  that  failed  in 

myself  I  was  seeking,  — 
'T  is  so  much  less  easy  to  do  than  to 

sing, 

So  much  simpler  to  reign  by  a  proxy 

than  he  king  ! 
Yes,  I  think  I  do  see  :  after  all 's  said 

and  sung, 
Take  this  one  rule  of  life  and  you 

never  will  rue  it,  — 
'T  is  but  do  your  own  duty  and  hold 

your  own  tongue 
And  Blondel  were  royal  himself,  if  he 

knew  it ! 


MEMORLE  POSITUM. 
R.  G.  S. 
I. 

Beneath  the  trees, 
My  lifelong  friends  in  this  dear  spot, 
Sad  now  for  eyes  that  see  them  not 
I  hear  the  autumnal  breeze 
Wake  the  sear  leaves  to  sigh  for  gladness 
gone, 

Whispering  hoarse  presage  of  obliv- 
ion, — 
Hear,  restless  as  the  seas, 
Time's  grim  feet  rustling  through  the 

withered  grace 
Of  many  a  spreading  realm  and  strong- 
stemmed  race, 
Even  as  my  own  through  these. 

Why  make  we  moan 
For  loss  that  doth  enrich  us  yet 
With  upward  yearnings  of  regret  ? 
Bleaker  than  unmossed  stone 
Our  lives  were  but  for  this  immortal  gain 
Of  unstilled  longing  and  inspiring  pain ! 


382 


MEMORLE  POS1TUM. 


As  thrills  of  long-hushed  tone 
Live  in  the  viol,  so  our  souls  grow  fine 
"With  keen  vibrations  from  the  touch 
divine 

Of  noble  natures  gone. 

'T  were  indiscreet 
To  vex  the  shy  and  sacred  grief 
"With  harsh  obtrusions  of  relief  ; 
Yet,  Verse,  with  noiseless  feet, 
Go  whisper:    14  This  death   hath  far 

choicer  ends 
Than  slowly  to  impearl  in  hearts  of 
friends  ; 
These  obsequies 't  is  meet 
Not  to  seclude  in  closets  of  the  heart, 
But,  church-like,  with  wide  doorways, 
to  impart 
Even  to  the  heedless  street." 


EL 

Brave,  good,  and  true, 
I  see  him  stand  before  me  now, 
And  read  again  on  that  young  brow, 
"Where  every  hope  was  new, 
How  sweet  were  life  !  Yet,  b}T  the  mouth 
firm-set, 

And  look  made  up  for  Duty's  utmost 
debt, 

I  could  divine  he  knew 
That  death  within  the  sulphurous  hos- 
tile lines, 

In  the  mere  wreck  of  nobly-pitched 
designs, 

Plucks  heart's-ease,  and  not  rue. 

Happy  their  end 
"Who  vanish  down  life's  evening  stream 
Placid  as  swans  that  drift  in  dream 
Round  the  next  river-bend  ! 
Happy  long  life,  with  honor  at  the 
close 

Friends'  painless  tears,  the  softened 

thought  of  foes  ! 
And  yet,  like  him,  to  spend 
All  at  a  gush,  keeping  our  first  faith 

sure 

From  mid-life's  doubt  and  eld's  content- 
ment poor,  — 
"What  more  could  Fortune  send  ? 

Ptight  in  the  van, 
On  the  red  rampart's  slippery  swell, 
"With  heart  that  beat  a  charge,  he  fell 

Foeward,  as  fits  a  man  ; 


But  the  high  soul  burns  on  to  light  men's 

feet 

Where  death  for  noble  ends  makes  dying 

sweet  ; 

His  life  her  crescent's  span 
Orbs  full  with  share  in  their  undarken- 
ing  days 

Who  ever  climbed  the  battailous  steeps 
of  praise 
Since  valor's  praise  began. 

in. 

His  life's  expense 
Hath  won  for  him  coeval  youth 
"With  the  immaculate  prime  of  Truth  ; 
While  we,  who  make  pretence 
At  living  on,  and  wake  and  eat  and 
sleep, 

And  life's  stale  trick  by  repetition  keep, 

Our  fickle  permanence 
(A  poor  leaf- shadow  on  a  brook,  whose 
play 

Of  busy  idlesse  ceases  with  our  day) 
Is  the  mere  cheat  of  sense. 

We  bide  our  chance, 
Unhappy,  and  make  terms  with  Fate 
A  little  more  to  let  us  wait ; 
He  leads  for  aye  the  advance, 
Hope's  forlorn-hopes   that  plant  the 

desperate  good 
For  nobler  Earths  and  days  of  manlier 
mood  ; 
Our  wall  of  circumstance 
Cleared  at  a  bound,  he  flashes  o'er  the 
fight, 

A  saintly  shape  of  fame,  to  cheer  the 
right 

And  steel  each  wavering  glance. 

I  write  of  one, 
"While  with  dim  eyes  I  think  of  three  ; 
"Who  weeps  not  others  fair  and  brave 
as  he  ? 

Ah,  when  the  fight  is  won, 
Dear  Land,  whom  triflers  now  make  bold 
to  scorn, 

(Thee  !  from  whose  forehead  Earth  awaits 
her  morn,) 
How  nobler  shall  the  sun 
Flame  in  thy  sky,  how  braver  breathe 
thy  air, 

That  thou  bred'st  children  who  for  thee 
could  dare 
And  die  as  thine  have  done ! 


ON  BOARD  THE  '76, 
ON  BOARD  THE  76. 


WRITTEN    FOR   MR.    BRYANT'S  SEVEN- 
TIETH BIRTHDAY. 

November  3,  1864. 

Our  ship  lay  tumbling  in  an  angry  sea, 
Her  rudder  gone,  her  mainmast  o'er 
the  side  ; 

Her  scuppers,  from  the  waves'  clutch 
staggering  free 
Trailed  threads  of  priceless  crimson 
through  the  tide  ; 
Sails,  shrouds,  and  spars  with  pirate 
cannon  torn, 
We  lay,  awaiting  morn. 

Awaiting  morn,  such  morn  as  mocks 
despair ; 

And  she  that  bare  the  promise  of  the 
world 

Within  her  sides,  now  hopeless,  helm- 
less,  bare, 
At  random  o'er  the  wildering  waters 
hurled ; 

The  reek  of  battle  drifting  slow  alee 
Not  sullener  than  we. 

Morn  came  at  last  to  peer  into  our  woe, 
When  lo,  a  sail !    Now  surely  help 
was  nigh  ; 
The  red  cross  flames  aloft,  Christ's 
pledge  ;  but  no, 
Her  black  guns  grinning  hate,  she 
rushes  by 

And  hails  us  :  —  "  Gains  the  leak  !  Ay, 
so  we  thought  ! 
Sink,  then,  with  curses  fraught !  " 

I  leaned  against  my  gun  still  angry-hot, 
And  my  lids  tingled  with  the  tears 

held  back  ; 
This  scorn  methought  was  crueller  than 

shot : 

The  manly  death-grip  in  the  battle- 
wrack, 

Yard-arm  to  yard-arm,  were  more  friendly 
far 

Than  such  fear-smothered  war. 

There  our  foe  wallowed,  like  a  wounded 
brute 

The  fiercer  for  his  hurt.    What  now 
were  best  ? 
Once  more  tug  bravely  at  the  peril's 
root, 


383 

Or 


Though  death  came  with  it  ? 
evade  the  test 
If  right  or  wrong  in  this  God's  world  of 
ours 

Be  leagued  with  higher  powers  ? 

Some,  faintly  loyal,  felt  their  pulses  lag 
With  the  slow  beat  that  doubts  and 
then  despairs  ; 
Some,  caitiff,  would  have  struck  the 
starry  flag 
That  knits  us  with  our  past,  and 
makes  us  heirs 
Of  deeds  high-hearted  as  were  ever  done 
'Neath  the  all-seeing  sun. 

But  there  was  one,  the  Singer  of  our 
crew, 

Upon  whose  head  Age  waved  his 
peaceful  sign, 
But  whose  red  heart's-blood  no  surren- 
der knew; 

And  couchant  under  brows  of  massive 
line, 

The  eyes,  like  guns  beneath  a  parapet, 
Watched,  charged  with  lightnings 
yet. 

The  voices  of  the  hills  did  his  obey ; 
The  torrents  flashed  and  tumbled  in 
his  song ; 

He  brought  our  native  fields  from  far 
away, 

Or  set  us  mid  the  innumerable  throng 
Of  dateless  woods,  or  where  we  heard  the 
calm 

Old  homestead's  evening  psalm. 

But  now  he  sang  of  faith  to  things 
unseen, 

Of  freedom's  birthright  given  to  us  in 
trust ; 

And  words  of  doughty  cheer  he  spoke 
between, 

That  made  all  earthly  fortune  seem  as 
dust, 

Matched  with  that  duty,  old  as  Time 
and  new, 
Of  being  brave  and  true. 

We,  listening,  learned  what  makes  the 
might  of  words,  — 
Manhood  to  back  them,  constant  as 
a  star ; 

His  voice  rammed  home  our  cannon, 
edged  our  swords, 


384 


COMMEMORATION  ODE. 


And   sent   our   boarders  'shouting ; 
shroud  and  spar 
Heard  him  and  stiffened  ;  the  sails  heard, 
and  wooed 
The  winds  with  loftier  mood. 

In  our  dark  hours  he  manned  our  guns 
again ; 

Remanned  ourselves  from  his  own 
manhood's  stores  ; 
Pride,  honor,  country,  throbbed  through 
all  his  strain  ; 
And  shall  we  praise  ?    God's  praise 
was  his  before  ; 
And  on  our  futile  laurels  he  looks  down, 
Himself  our  bravest  crown. 


ODE   RECITED    AT  THE  HARVARD 
COMMEMORATION. 

July  21,  1865. 

L 

Weak-winged  is  song, 

Nor  aims  at  that  clear-ethered  height 

"Whither  the  brave  deed  climbs  for  light : 

We  seem  to  do  them  wrong, 
Bringing  our  robin's-leaf  to  deck  their 
hearse 

Who  in  warm  life-blood  wrote  their 

nobler  verse, 
Our  trivial  song  to  honor  those  who 

come 

With  ears  attuned  to  strenuous  trump 

and  drum, 
And  shaped  in  squadron- strophes  their 

desire, 

Live  battle-odes  whose  lines  were  steel 
and  fire  : 

Yet  sometimes  feathered  words  are 
strong, 

A  gracious  memory  to  buoy  up  and  save 
From  Lethe's  dreamless  ooze,  the  com- 
mon grave 
Of  the  unventurous  throng. 

II. 

To-day  our  Reverend  Mother  welcomes 
back 

Her  wisest  Scholars,  those  who  under- 
stood 

The  deeper  teaching  of  her  mystic  tome, 
And  offered  their  fresh  lives  to  make 
it  good : 


No  lore  of  Greece  or  Rome, 
No  science  peddling  with  the  names  of 
things, 

Or  reading  stars  to  find  inglorious  fates, 

Can  lift  our  life  with  wings 
Far  from  Death's  idle  gulf  that  for  the 
many  waits, 
And  lengthen  out  our  dates 
With  that  clear  fame  whose  memory  sings 
In  manly  hearts  to  come,  and  nerves 

them  and  dilates : 
Nor  such  thy  teaching,  Mother  of  us  all ! 
Not  such  the  trumpet-call 
Of  thy  diviner  mood, 
That  could  thy  sons  entice 
From  happy  homes  and  toils,  the  fruit- 
ful nest 

Of  those  half-virtues  which  the  world 
calls  best, 
Into  War's  tumult  rude ; 
But  rather  far  that  stern  device 
The  sponsors  chose  that  round  thy  cradle 
stood 

In  the  dim,  unventured  wood, 
The  Veritas  that  lurks  beneath 
The  letter's  un prolific  sheath, 
Life  of  whate'er  makes  life  worth 
living, 

Seed-grain  of  high  emprise,  immortal 
food, 

One  heavenly  thing  whereof  earth  hath 
the  giving. 


in. 

Many  loved  Truth,  and  lavished  life's 
best  oil 

Amid  the  dust  of  books  to  find  her, 
Content  at  last,  for  guerdon  of  their  toil, 
With  the  cast  mantle  she  hath  left 
behind  her. 
Many  in  sad  faith  sought  for  her, 
Many  with  crossed  hands  sighed  for 
her  ; 

But  these,  our  brothers,  fought  for 
her 

At  life 's  dear  peril  wrought  for  her, 
So  loved  her  that  they  died  for  her, 
Tasting  the  raptured  fleetness 
Of  her  divine  completeness : 
Their  higher  instinct  knew 
Those  love  her  best  who  to  themselves 
are  true, 

And  what  they  dare  to  dream  of,  dare  to 
do ; 

They  followed  her  and  found  her 
Where  all  may  hope  to  find, 


COMMEMORATION  ODE. 


385 


Not  in  the  ashes  of  the  burnt-out  mind, 
But  beautiful,  with  danger's  sweetness 
round  her. 
Where  faith  made  whole  with  deed 
Breathes  its  awakening  breath 
Into  the  lifeless  creed, 
They  saw  her  plumed  and  mailed, 
With  sweet,  stern  face  unveiled, 
And  all-repaying  eyes,  look  proud  on 
them  in  death. 


IV. 

Our  slender  life  runs  rippling  by,  and 
glides 

Into  the  silent  hollow  of  the  past ; 

What  is  there  that  abides 
To  make  the  next  age  better  for  the 
last? 

Is  earth  too  poor  to  give  us 
Something  to  live  for  here  that  shall 
outlive  us  ? 
Some  more  substantial  boon 
Than  such  as  flows  and  ebbs  with  For- 
tune's fickle  moon  ? 
The  little  that  we  see 
From  doubt  is  never  free ; 
The  little  that  we  do 
Is  but  half-nobly  true ; 
With  our  laborious  hiving 
What  men  call  treasure,  and  the  gods 
call  dross, 
Life  seems  a  jest  of  Fate's  contriving, 
Only  secure  in  every  one's  conniving, 
A  long  account  of  nothings  paid  with 
loss, 

Where  we  poor  puppets,  jerked  by  un- 
seen wires, 
After  our  little  hour  of  strut  and  rave, 

With  all  our  pasteboard  passions  and 
desires, 

Loves,  hates,  ambitions,  and  immortal 
fires, 

Are  tossed  pell-mell  together  in  the 
grave. 

But  stay !  no  age  was  e'er  degenerate, 
Unless  men  held  it  at  too  cheap  a  rate, 
For  in  our  likeness  still  we  shape  our 
fate. 

Ah,  there  is  something  here 
Unfathomed  by  the  cynic's  sneer, 
Something  that  gives  our  feeble  light 
A  high  immunity  from  Night, 
Something  that  leaps  life's  narrow  bars 
To  claim  its  birthright  with  the  hosts  of 
heaven  ; 

A  seed  of  sunshine  that  doth  leaven 
25 


Our  earthly  dulness  with  the  beams  of 
stars, 

And  glorify  our  clay 
With  light  from  fountains  elder  than 
the  Day ; 
A  conscience  more  divine  than  we, 
A  gladness  fed  with  secret  tears, 
A  vexing,  forward-reaching  sense 
Of  some  more  noble  permanence  ; 
A  light  across  the  sea, 
Which  haunts  the  soul  and  will  not 
let  it  be, 

Still  glimmering  from  the  heights  of  un- 
degenerate  years. 


v. 

Whither  leads  the  path 
To  ampler  fates  that  leads  ? 
Not   down   through  flowery 

meads, 
To  reap  an  aftermath 
Of  3'outh's  vainglorious  weeds, 
But  up  the  steep,  amid  the  wrath 
And  shock  of  deadly-hostile  creeds, 
Where  the  world's  best  hope  and 
stay 

By  battle's  flashes  gropes  a  desperate 
way, 

And  every  turf  the  fierce  foot  clings  to 
bleeds. 

Peace  hath  her  not  ignoble  wreath, 
Ere  yet  the  sharp,  decisive  word 
Light  the  black  lips  of  cannon,  and  the 
sword 

Dreams  in  its  easeful  sheath ; 
But  some  day  the  live  coal  behind  the 
thought, 

Whether  from  Baal's  stone  ob- 
scene, 

Or  from  the  shrine  serene 
Of  God's  pure  altar  brought, 
Bursts  up  in  flame ;  the  war  of  tongue 
and  pen 

Learns  with  what  deadly  purpose  it  was 
fraught, 

And,  helpless  in  the  fiery  passion  caught, 
Shakes  all  the  pillared  state  with  shock 
of  men  : 

Some  day  the  soft  Ideal  that  we  wooed 
Confronts  us  fiercely,  foe-beset,  pursued, 
And  cries  reproachful  :  "  Was  it,  then, 
my  praise, 

And  not  myself  was  loved  ?    Prove  now 

thy  truth  ; 
I  claim  of  thee  the  promise  of  thy  youth  ; 


386 


COMMEMORATION  ODE. 


Give  me  thy  life,  or  cower  in  empty 
phrase, 

The  victim   of  thy  genius,    not  its 
mate  \" 

Life  may  be  given  in  many  ways, 
And  loyalty  to  Truth  be  sealed 
As  bravely  in  the  closet  as  the  field, 
So  bountiful  is  Fate  ; 
But  then  to  stand  beside  her, 
When  craven  churls  deride  her, 
To  front  a  lie  in  arms   and  not  to 
yield, 

This  shows,  methinks,  God's  plan 
And  measure  of  a  stalwart  man, 
Limbed  like  the  old  heroic  breeds, 
Who  stands  self-poised  on  man- 
hood's solid  earth, 
Not  forced  to  frame  excuses  for  his 
birth, 

Fed  from  within  with  all  the  strength  he 
needs. 


VI. 

Such  was  he,  our  Martyr-Chief, 

Whom  late  the  Nation  he  had  led, 
With  ashes  on  her  head, 
Wept  with  the  passion  of  an  angry  grief: 
Forgive  me,  if  from  present  things  I 
turn 

To  speak  what  in  my  heart  will  beat  and 
burn, 

And  hang  my  wreath  on  his  world-hon- 
ored urn. 
Nature,  they  say,  doth  dote, 
And  cannot  make  a  man 
Save  on  some  worn-out  plan, 
Repeating  us  by  rote  : 
For  him  her  Old- World  moulds  aside  she 
threw, 

And,  choosing  sweet  clay  from  the 
breast 

Of  the  unexhausted  West, 
With  stuff  untainted  shaped  a  hero  new, 
Wise,  steadfast  in  the  strength  of  God, 
and  true. 
How  beautiful  to  see 
Once  more  a  shepherd  of  mankind  in- 
deed, 

Who  loved  his  charge,  but  never  loved 
to  lead  ; 

One  whose  meek  flock  the  people  joyed 
to  be, 

Not  lured  by  any  cheat  of  birth, 
But  by  his   clear-grained  human 
worth, 

And  brave  old  wisdom  of  sincerity  ! 


They  knew  that  outward  grace  is 
dust  ; 

They  could  not  choose  but  trust 
In  that  sure-footed  mind's  unfaltering 
skill, 

And  supple-tempered  will 
That  bent  like  perfect  steel  to  spring 
again  and  thrust. 
His  was  no  lonely  mountain -peak 
of  mind, 

Thrusting  to  thin  air  o'er  our  cloudy 
bars, 

A  sea-mark  now,  now  lost  in  vapors 
blind; 

Broad  prairie  rather,  genial,  level- 
lined, 

Fruitful  and  friendly  for  all  human 
kind, 

Yet  also  nigh  to  heaven  and  loved  of 

loftiest  stars. 
Nothing  of  Europe  here, 
Or,  then,  of  Europe  fronting  mornward 

still, 

Ere  any  names  of  Serf  and  Peer 
Could  Nature's  equal  scheme  de- 
face 

And  thwart  her  genial  will ; 
Here  was  a  type  of  the  true  elder 
race, 

And  one  of  Plutarch's  men  talked  with 

us  face  to  face. 
I  praise  him  not  ;  it  were  too  late  ; 
And  seme  innative  weakness  there  must 

be 

In  him  who  condescends  to  victory 
Such  as  the  Present  gives,  and  cannot 
wait, 

Safe  in  himself  as  in  a  fate. 
So  always  firmly  he  : 
He  knew  to  bide  his  time, 
And  can  his  fame  abide, 
Still  patient  in  his  simple  faith  sub- 
lime, 

Till  the  wise  years  decide. 
Great  captains,  with  their  guns  and 
drums, 

Disturb  our  judgment  for  the  hour, 
But  at  last  silence  comes  ; 
These  all  are  gone,  and,  standing  like 
a  tower, 

Our  children  shall  behold  his  fame, 
The  kindly-earnest,  brave,  foresee- 
ing man, 

Sagacious,  patient,  dreading  praise,  not 
blame, 

New  birth  of  our  new  soil,  the  first 
American. 


COMMEMORATION  ODE. 


387 


VII. 

Long  as  man's  hope  insatiate  can 
discern 

Or  only  guess  some  more  inspiring 
goal 

Outside  of  Self,  enduring  as  the 
pole, 

Along  whose  course  the  flying  axles 
burn 

Of  spirits    bravely-pitched,  earth's 
manlier  brood  ; 
Long  as  below  we  cannot  find 
The  meed  that  stills  the  inexorable 
mind  ; 

So  long  this  faith  to  some  ideal  Good, 
Under  whatever    mortal   names  it 
masks, 

Freedom,  Law,  Country,  this  ethereal 
mood 

That  thanks  the  Fates  for  their  severer 
tasks, 

Feeling  its  challenged  pulses  leap, 
While  others  skulk  in  subterfuges 
cheap, 

And,  set  in  Danger's  van,  has  all  the 
boon  it  asks, 
Shall  win  man's  praise  and  woman's 
love, 

Shall  be  a  wisdom  that  we  set  above 
All  other  skills  and  gifts  to  culture  dear, 
A  virtue  round  whose  forehead  we  in- 
wreathe 

Laurels  that  with  a  living  passion 
breathe 

"When  other  crowns  grow,  while  we  twine 

them,  sear. 
What  brings  us  thronging  these  high 

rites  to  pay, 
And  seal  these  hours  the  noblest  of  our 

year, 

Save  that  our  brothers  found  this  bet- 
ter way  ? 

VIII. 

We  sit  here  in  the  Promised  Land 
That  flows  with  Freedom's  honey  and 
milk ; 

But 't  was  they  won  it,  sword  in  hand, 
Making  the  nettle  danger  soft  for  us  as 
silk. 

We  welcome  back  our  bravest  and  our 
best ;  — 

Ah  me  !  not  all !  some  come  not  with 
the  rest, 

Who  went  forth  brave  and  bright  as  any 
here  ! 


I  strive  to  mix  some  gladness  with  my 
strain, 

But  the  sad  strings  complain, 
And  will  not  please  the  ear  : 

I  sweep  them  for  a  prean,  but  they  wane 
Again  and  yet  again 

Into  a  dirge,  and  die  away,  in  pain. 

In  these  brave  ranks  I  only  see  the  gaps, 

Thinking  of  dear  ones  whom  the  dumb 
turf  wraps, 

Dark  to  the  triumph  which  they  died  to 
gain: 

Fitlier  may  others  greet  the  living, 
For  me  the  past  is  unforgiving  ; 
I  with  uncovered  head 
Salute  the  sacred  dead, 
Who  went,  and  who  return  not.  —  Say 
not  so  ! 

'T  is  not  the  grapes  of  Canaan  that  repay, 
But  the  high  faith  that  failed  not  by 
the  way  ; 

Virtue  treads  paths  that  end  not  in  the 

grave  ; 

No  bar  of  endless  night  exiles  the  brave ; 

And  to  the  saner  mind 
We  rather  seem  the  dead  that  stayed 
behind. 

Blow,  trumpets,  all  your  exultations 
blow  ! 

For  never  shall  their  aureoled  presence 
lack  : 

I  see  them  muster  in  a  gleaming  row, 
j  With  ever-youthful  brows  that  nobler 
show ; 

We  find  in  our  dull  road  their  shining 
track  ; 
In  every  nobler  mood 
We  feel  the  orient  of  their  spirit  glow, 
Part  of  our  life's  unalterable  good, 
Of  all  our  saintlier  aspiration  ; 

They  come  transfigured  back, 
Secure  from  change  in  their  high-hearted 
ways, 

Beautiful  evermore,  and  with  the  rays 
Of  morn  on  their  white  Shields  of  Ex- 
pectation ! 


IX. 

But  is  there  hope  to  save 
Even  this  ethereal  essence  from  the 
grave  ? 

What  ever  'scaped  Oblivion's  subtle 
wrong 

Save  a  few  clarion  names,  or  golden 
threads  of  song? 
Before  my  musing  eye 


388 


COMMEMORATION  ODE. 


The  mighty  ones  of  old  sweep  by, 
Disvoiced    now    and  insubstantial 
things, 

As  noisy  once  as  we ;  poor  ghosts  of 
kings, 

Shadows  of  empire  wholly  gone  to 
dust, 

And  many  races,  nameless  long  ago, 
To  darkness  driven  by  that  imperious 
gust 

Of  ever-rushing  Time  that  here  doth 
blow  : 

O  visionary  world,  condition  strange, 
Where  naught  abiding  is  but  only 
Change, 

Where  the  deep- bolted  stars  themselves 
still  shift  and  range  ! 
Shall  we  to  more  continuance  make 
pretence  ? 

Renown  builds  tombs  ;  a  life-estate  is 

Wit; 
And,  bit  by  bit, 
The  cunning  years  steal  all  from  us  but 

woe  ; 

Leaves  are  we,  whose  decays  no  har- 
vest sow. 
But,  when  we  vanish  hence, 

Shall  they  lie  forceless  in  the  dark 
below, 

Save  to  make  green  their  little  length 
of  sods, 

Or  deepen  pansies  for  a  year  or  two, 
Who  now  to  us  are  shining-sweet  as 
gods  ? 

Was  dying  all  they  had  the  skill  to  do  ? 
That  were  not  fruitless  :  but  the  Soul 
resents 

Such  short-lived  service,  as  if  blind 
events 

Ruled  without  her,  or  earth  could  so 
endure ; 

She  claims  a  more  divine  investiture 
Of  longer  tenure  than  Fame's  airy 
rents  ; 

Whate'er  she  touches  doth  her  nature 
share  ; 

Her  inspiration  haunts  the  ennobled 
air, 

Gives  eyes  to  mountains  blind, 
Ears  to  the  deaf  earth,  voices  to  the 
wind, 

And  her  clear  trump  sings  succor 

everywhere 
By  lonely  bivouacs  to  the  wakeful 

mind  ; 

For  soul  inherits  all  that  soul  could 
dare  : 


Yea,  Manhood  hath  a  wider  span 
And  larger  privilege  of  life  than  man. 
The  single  deed,  the  private  sacrifice, 
So  radiant  now  through  proudly-hid- 
den tears, 
Is  covered  up  erelong  from  mortal  eyes 
With  thoughtless  drift  of  the  decidu- 
ous years  ; 
But  that  high  privilege  that  makes  all 

men  peers, 
That  leap  of  heart  whereby  a  people 
rise 

Up  to  a  noble  anger's  height, 
And,  flamed  on  by  the  Fates,  not  shrink, 
but  grow  more  bright, 
That  swift  validity  in  noble  veins, 
Of  choosing  danger  and  disdaining 
shame, 
Of  being  set  on  flame 
By  the  pure  fire  that  flies  all  contact 
base, 

But  wraps  its  chosen  with  angelic  might, 
These  are  imperishable  gains, 
Sure  as  the  sun,  medicinal  as  light, 
These  hold  great  futures  in  their  lusty 
reins 

And  certify  to  earth  a  new  imperial  race, 
x. 

Who  now  shall  sneer  ? 
Who  dare  again  to  say  we  trace 
Our  lines  to  a  plebeian  race  ? 
Roundhead  and  Cavalier ! 
Dumb  are  those  names  erewhile  in  battle 
loud ; 

Dream-footed  as  the  shadow  of  a  cloud, 

They  flit  across  the  ear  : 
That  is  best  blood  that  hath  most  iron 
in 't. 

To  edge  resolve  with,  pouring  without 
stint 

For  what  makes  manhood  dear. 
Tell  us  not  of  Plantagenets, 
Hapsburgs,  andGuelfs,  whose  thin  bloods 
crawl 

Down  from  some  victor  in  a  border- 
brawl  ! 

How  poor  their  outworn  coronets, 
Matched  with  one  leaf  of  that  plain  civic 
wreath 

Our  brave  for  honor's  blazon  shall  be- 
queath, 

Through  whose  desert  a  rescued  Nation 

sets 

Her  heel  on  treason,  and  the  trumpet 
hears 


COMMEMORATION  ODE. 


389 


Shout  victory,  tingling  Europe's  sullen 
ears 

With  vain  resentments  and  more  vain 
regrets  ! 

XI. 

Not  in  anger,  not  in  pride, 
Pure  from  passion's  mixture  rude 
Ever  to  base  earth  allied, 
But  with  far-heard  gratitude, 
Still  withheart  and  voice  renewed, 
To  heroes  living  and  dear  martyrs 
dead, 

The  strain  should  close  that  consecrates 

our  brave. 
Lift  the  heart  and  lift  the  head  ! 
Lofty  be  its  mood  and  grave, 
Not  without  a  martial  ring, 
Not  without  a  prouder  tread 
And  a  peal  of  exultation  : 
Little  right  has  he  to  sing 
Through  whose  heart  in  such  an 

hour 

Beats  no  march  of  conscious 
power, 

Sweeps  no  tumult  of  elation  ! 
'T  is  no  Man  we  celebrate, 
By  his  country's  victories  great, 
,  A  hero  half,  and  half  the  whim  of 
Fate, 

But  the  pith  and  marrow  of  a 
Nation 

Drawing  force  from  all  her  men, 
Highest,  humblest,  weakest,  all, 
For  her  time  of  need,  and  then 
Pulsing  it  again  through  them, 
Till  the  basest  can  no  longer  cower, 
Feeling  his  soul  spring  up  divinely  tall, 
Touched  but  in  passing  by  her  mantle- 
hem. 

Come  back,  then,  noble  pride,  for  't  is 
her  dower  ! 
How  could  poet  ever  tower, 
If  his  passions,  hopes,  and  fears, 
If  his  triumphs  and  his  tears, 
Kept  not  measure  with  his  peo- 
ple ? 

Boom,  cannon,  boom  to  all  the  winds 

and  waves  ! 
Clash  out,  glad  bells,  from  every  rock- 
ing steeple  ! 
Banners,  adance  with  triumph,  bend 
your  staves ! 
And  from  every  mountain-peak 
Let  beacon-tire  to  answering  beacon 


Katahdin  tell  Monadnock,  White- 
face  he, 

And  so  leap  on  in  light  from  sea  to  sea, 
Till  the  glad  news  be  sent 
Across  a  kindling  continent, 
Making  earth  feel  more  firm  and  air 

breathe  braver: 
"  Be  proud  !  for  she  is  saved,  and  all 
have  helped  to  save  her ! 
She  that  lifts  up  the  manhood  of 

the  poor, 
She  of  the  open  soul  and  open  door, 
With  room  about  her  hearth  for  all 

mankind  ! 
The  tire  is  dreadful  in  her  eyes  no 
more ; 

From  her  bold  front  the  helm  she 

doth  unbind, 
Sends  all  her  handmaid  armies  back 

to  spin, 

And  bids  her  navies,  that  so  lately 
hurled 

Their  crashing  battle,  hold  their 

thunders  in, 
Swimming  like  birds  of  calm  along 

the  unharmful  shore. 
No  challenge  sends  she  to  the  elder 

world, 

That  looked  askance  and  hated ;  a 

light  scorn 
Plays  o'er  her  mouth,  as  round  her 

mighty  knees 
She  calls  her  children  back,  and 

waits  the  morn 
Of  nobler  day,  enthroned  between  her 

subject  seas." 


Bow  down,  dear  Land,  for  thou  hast 

found  release ! 
Thy  God,  in  these  distempered  days, 
Hath  taught  thee  the  sure  wisdom  of 

His  ways, 

And  through  thine  enemies  hath  wrought 
thy  peace ! 
Bow  down  in  prayer  and  praise  ! 

No  poorest  in  thy  borders  but  may  now 

Lift  to  the  juster  skies  a  man's  enfran- 
chised brow, 

0  Beautiful  !  my  Country  !  ours  once 
more  ! 

Smoothing  thy  gold  of  war- dishevelled 
hair 

O'er  such  sweet  brows  as  never  other 
wore, 

And  letting  thy  set  lips, 


390 


l'envoi. 


Freed  from  wrath's  pale  eclipse, 
The  rosy  edges  of  their  smile  lay  bare, 
What  words  divine  of  lover  or  of  poet 
Could  tell  our  love  and  make  thee  know 
it, 

Among  the  Nations  bright  beyond  com- 
pare ? 


What   were  our  lives  without 
thee? 

What  all  our  lives  to  save  thee  ? 
We  reck  not  what  we  gave  thee ; 
We  will  not  dare  to  doubt  thee, 
But  ask  whatever  else,  and  we  will 
dare! 


L'ENVOI. 

TO  THE  MUSE. 


Whither  ?   Albeit  I  follow  fast, 

In  all  life's  circuit  I  but  find, 
Not  where  thou  art,  but  where  thou 
wast, 

Sweet  beckoner,  more  fleet  than  wind ! 
I  haunt  the  pine-dark  solitudes, 

With  soft  brown  silence  carpeted, 
And  plot  to  snare  thee  in  the  woods  : 

Peace  I  o'ertake,  but  thou  art  fled  ! 
I  find  the  rock  where  thou  didst  rest, 
The  moss  thy  skimming  foot  hath  prest ; 

All  Nature  with  thy  parting  thrills, 
Like  branches  after  birds  new-flown ; 

Thy  passage  hill  and  hollow  fills 
With  hints  of  virtue  not  their  own ; 
In  dimples  still  the  water  slips 
Where  thou  hast  dipt  thy  finger-tips  ; 

Just,  just  beyond,  forever  burn 

Gleams  of  grace  without  return ; 

Upon  thy  shade  I  plant  my  foot, 
And  through  my  frame  strange  raptures 
shoot ; 

All  of  thee  but  thyself  I  grasp ; 

I  seem  to  fold  thy  luring  shape, 
And  vague  air  to  my  bosom  clasp, 

Thou  lithe,  perpetual  Escape  I 

One  mask  and  then  another  drops, 
And  thou  art  secret  as  before  : 
Sometimes  with  flooded  ear  I  list, 
And  hear  thee,  wondrous  organist, 
From  mighty  continental  stops 
A  thunder  of  new  music  pour ; 
Through  pipes  of  earth  and  air  and  stone 
Thy  inspiration  deep  is  blown ; 
Through  mountains,  forests,  open  downs, 
Lakes,  railroads,  prairies,  states,  and 
towns, 


Thy  gathering  fugue  goes  rolling  on 
From  Maine  to  utmost  Oregon  ; 
The  factory-wheels  in  cadence  hum, 
From  brawling  parties  concords  come  ; 
All  this  I  hear,  or  seem  to  hear, 
But  when,  enchanted,  I  draw  near 
To  mate  with  words  the  various  theme, 
Life  seems  a  whiff  of  kitchen  steam, 
History  an  organ-grinder's  thrum, 

For  thou  hast  slipt  from  it  and  me 
And  all  thine  organ-pipes  left  dumb,  • 

Most  mutable  Perversity ! 

Not  weary  yet,  I  still  must  seek, 
And  hope  for  luck  next  day,  next  week  ; 
I  go  to  see  the  great  man  ride, 
Shiplike,  the  swelling  human  tide 
That  floods  to  bear  him  into  port, 
Trophied  from  Senate-hall  and  Court ; 
Thy  magnetism,  I  feel  it  there, 
Thy  rhythmic  presence  fleet  and  rare, 
Making  the  Mob  a  moment  fine 
With  glimpses  of  their  own  Divine, 
As  in  their  demigod  they  see 

Their  cramped  ideal  soaring  free  ; 
'T  was  thou  didst  bear  the  fire  about, 

That,  like  the  springing  of  a  mine 
Sent  up  to  heaven  the  street-long  shout ; 
Full  well  I  know  that  thou  wast  here, 
It  was  thy  breath  that  brushed  my  ear ; 
But  vainly  in  the  stress  and  whirl 
I  dive  for  thee,  the  moment's  pearl. 

Through  every  shape  thou  well  canst 
run, 

Proteus,  'twixt  rise  and  set  of  sun, 
Well    pleased   with   logger-camps  in 
Maine 


TO  THE  MUSE, 


391 


As  where  Milan's  pale  Duomo  lies 
A  stranded  glacier  on  the  plain, 
Its  peaks  and  pinnacles  of  ice 
Melted  in  many  a  quaint  device, 
And  sees,  above  the  city's  din, 
Afar  its  silent  Alpine  kin  : 
I  track  thee  over  carpets  deep 
To  wealth's  and  beauty's  inmost  keep  ; 
Across  the  sand  of  bar-room  floors 
Mid  the  stale  reek  of  boosing  boors  ; 
Where  drowse  the  hay-field's  fragrant 
heats, 

Or  the  flail-heart  of  Autumn  beats  ; 
I  dog  thee  through  the  market's  throngs 
To  where  the  sea  with  myriad  tongues 
Laps  the  green  edges  of  the  pier, 
And  the  tall  ships  that  eastward  steer, 
Curtsy  their  farewells  to  the  town, 
O'er  the  curved  distance  lessening  down ; 
I  follow  allwhere  for  thy  sake. 
Touch  thy  robe's  hem,  but  ne'er  o'ertake, 
Find  where,  scarce  yet  un  moving,  lies, 
"Warm  from  thy  limbs,  thy  last  disguise  ; 
But  thou  another  shape  hast  donned, 
And  lurest  still  just,  just  beyond  ! 

But  here  a  voice,  I  know  not  whence, 
Thrills  clearly  through  my  inward  sense, 
Saying  :  "  See  where  she  sits  at  home 
While  thou  in  search  of  her  dost  roam ! 
All  summer  long  her  ancient  wheel 

Whirls  humming  by  the  open  door, 
Or,  when  the  hickory's  social  zeal 

Sets  the  wide  chimney  in  a  roar, 
Close-nestled  by  the  tinkling  hearth, 
It  modulates  the  household  mirth 
With  that  sweet  serious  undertone 
Of  duty,  music  all  her  own  ; 
Still  as  of  old  she  sits  and  spins 
Our  hopes,  our  sorrows,  and  our  sins; 
With  equal  care  she  twines  the  fates 
Of  cottages  and  mighty  states  ; 
She  spins  the  earth,  the  air,  the  sea, 
The  maiden's  unschooled  fancy  free, 


The  boy's  first  love,  the  man's  first  grief, 
The  budding  and  the  fall  o'  the  leaf ; 
The  piping  west-wind's  snowy  care 
For  her  their  cloudy  fleeces  spare, 
Or  from  the  thorns  of  evil  times 
She  can  glean  wool  to  twist  her  rhymes  ; 
Morning  and  noon  and  eve  supply 
To  her  their  fairest  tints  for  dye, 
But  ever  through  her  twirling  thread 
There  spires  one  line  of  warmest  red, 
Tinged  from  the  homestead's  genial 
heart, 

The  stamp  and  warrant  of  her  art ; 
With  this  Time's  sickle  she  outwears, 
And  blunts  the  Sisters'  baffled  shears. 

"  Harass  her  not :  thy  heat  and  stir 
But  greater  coyness  breed  in  her  ; 
Yet  thou  mayst  find,  ere  Age's  frost, 
Thy  long  apprenticeship  not  lost, 
Learning  at  last  that  Stygian  Fate 
Unbends  to  him  that  knows  to  wait. 
The  Muse  is  womanish,  nor  deigns 
Her  love  to  him  that  pules  and  plains  ; 
With  proud,  averted  face  she  stands 
To  him  that  wooes  with  empty  hands. 
Make  thyself  free  of  Manhood's  guild.; 
Pull  down  thy  barns  and  greater  build  ; 
The  wood,  the  mountain,  and  the  plain 
Wave  breast-deep  with  the  poet's  grain  ; 
Pluck  thou  the  sunset's  fruit  of  gold, 
Glean  from  the  heavens  and  ocean  old  ; 
From  fireside  lone  and  trampling  street 
Let  thy  life  garner  daily  wheat ; 
The  epic  of  a  man  rehearse, 
Be  something  better  than  thy  verse  ; 
Make  thyself  rich,  and  then  the  Muse 
Shall  court  thy  precious  interviews, 
Shall  take  thy  head  upon  her  knee, 
And  such  enchantment  lilt  to  thee, 
That  thou  shalt  hear  the  life-blood  flow 
From  farthest  stars  to  grass- blades  low, 
And  find  the  Listener's  science  still 
Transcends  the  Singer's  deepest  skill !  " 


THE  CATHEDRAL. 


Far  through  the  memory  shines  a  happy 
day, 

Cloudless  of  care,  down-shod  to  every 

sense, 

And  simply  perfect  from  its  own  resource, 
As  to  a  bee  the  new  campanula's 
Illuminate  seclusion  swung  in  air. 
Such  days  are  not  the  prey  of  setting 
suns, 

Xor  ever  blurred  with  mist  of  after- 
thought ; 

Like  words  made  magical  by  poets  dead, 
Wherein  the  music  of  all  meaning  is 
The  sense  hath  garnered  or  the  soul  di- 
vined, 

They  mingle  with  our  life's  ethereal  part, 
Sweetening  and  gathering  sweetness  ever- 
more, 

By  beauty's  franchise  disenthralled  of 
time. 

I  can  recall,  nay,  they  are  present  still, 
Parts  of  myself,  the  perfume  of  my  mind, 
Days  that  seem  farther  off  than  Homer's 
now 

Ere  yet  the  child  had  loudened  to  the  boy, 
And  I,  recluse  from  playmates,  found 
perforce 

Companionship  in  things  that  not  denied 
Not  granted  wholly ;   as  is  Nature's 
wont, 

"Who,  safe  in  uncontaminate  reserve, 
Lets  us  mistake  our  longing  for  her  love, 
And  mocks  with  various  echo  of  our- 
selves. 

These  first  sweet  frauds  upon  our  con- 
sciousness, 

That  blend  the  sensual  with  its  imaged 
world, 

These  virginal  cognitions,  gifts  of  morn, 
Ere  life  grow  noisy,  and  slower-footed 
thought 


Can  overtake  the  rapture  of  the  sense, 
To  thrust  between  ourselves  and  what 
we  feel, 

Have  something  in  them  secretly  divine. 
Vainly  the  eye,  once  schooled  to  serve 
the  brain, 

With  pains  deliberate  studies  to  renew 
The  ideal  vision  :  second-thoughts  are 
prose  ; 

For  beauty's  acme  hath  a  term  as  brief 
As  the  wave's  poise  before  it  break  in 
pearl. 

Our  own  breath  dims  the  mirror  of  the 

sense, 

Looking  too  long  and  closely  :  at  a  flash 
We  snatch  the  essential  grace  of  mean- 
ing out, 

And  that  first  passion  beggars  all  be- 
hind, 

Heirs  of  a  tamer  transport  prepossessed. 
Who,  seeing  once,  has  truly  seen  again 
The  gray  vague  of  unsympathizing  sea 
That  dragged  his  Fancy  from  her  moor- 
ings back 
To  shores  inhospitable  of  eldest  time, 
Till  blank  foreboding  of  earth-gendered 
powers, 

Pitiless  seignories  in  the  elements, 
Omnipotences  blind  that  darkling  smite, 
Misgave    him,   and   repaganized  the 
world  ? 

Yet,  by  some  subtler  touch  of  sympathy, 
These    primal    apprehensions,  dimly 
stirred, 

Perplex  the  eye  with  pictures  from  with- 
in. 

This  hath  made  poets  dream  of  lives  fore- 
gone 

In  worlds  fantastical,  more  fair  than  ours ; 
So  Memory  cheats  us,  glimpsing  half- 
revealed. 

Even  as  I  write  she  tries  her  wonted 
spell 


THE  CATHEDRAL. 


393 


In  that  continuous  redbreast  boding 
rain  : 

The  bird  I  hear  sings  not  from  yonder 
elm  ; 

But  the  flown  ecstasy  my  childhood 
heard 

Is  vocal  in  my  mind,  renewed  by  him, 
Haply  made  sweeter  by  the  accumulate 
thrill 

That  threads  my  undivided  life  and 
steals 

A  pathos  from  the  years  and  graves  be- 
tween. 

I  know  not  how  it  is  with  other  men, 
Whom  I  but  guess,  deciphering  myself ; 
For  me,  once  felt  is  so  felt  nevermore. 
The  fleeting  relish  at  sensation's  brim 
Had  in  it  the  best  ferment  of  the  wine. 
One  spring  I  knew  as  never  any  since  : 
All  night  the  surges  of  the  warm  south- 
west 

Boomed  intermittent  through  the  shud- 
dering elms, 

And  brought  a  morning  from  the  Gulf 
adrift, 

Omnipotent  with  sunshine,  whose  quick 
charm 

Startled  with  crocuses  the  sullen  turf 
And  wiled  the  bluebird  to  his  whiff  of 
song : 

One  summer  hour  abides,  what  time  I 
perched, 

Dappled  with  noonday,  under  simmer- 
ing leaves, 

And  pulled  the  pulpy  oxhearts,  while 
aloof 

An  oriole  clattered  and  the  robins 
shrilled, 

Denouncing  me  an  alien  and  a  thief : 
One  morn  of  autumn  lords  it  o'er  the 
rest, 

When  in  the  lane  I  watched  the  ash- 
leaves  fall, 

Balancing  softly  earthward  without 
wind, 

Or  twirling  with  directer  impulse  down 
On  those  fallen  yesterday,  now  barbed 

with  frost, 
While  I  grew  pensive  with  the  pensive 

year  : 

And  once  I  learned  how  marvellous 

winter  was, 
When  past  the  fence-rails,  downy-gray 

with  rime, 
I  creaked  adventurous  o'er  the  spangled 

crust 


That  made  familiar  fields  seem  far  and 
strange 

As  those  stark  wastes  that  whiten  end- 
lessly 

In  ghastly  solitude  about  the  pole, 
And  gleam  relentless  to  the  unsetting 
sun  : 

Instant  the  candid  chambers  of  my  brain 
Were  painted  with  these  sovran  images  ; 
And  later  visions  seem  but  copies  pale 
From  those  unfading  frescos  of  the  past, 
Which  I,  young  savage,  in  my  age  of 
flint, 

Gazed  at,  and  dimly  felt  a  power  in  me 
Parted  from  Nature  by  the  joy  in  her 
That  doubtfully  revealed  me  to  myself. 
Thenceforward  I  must  stand  outside  the 
gate; 

And  paradise  was  paradise  the  more, 
Known  once  and  barred  against  satiety. 

What  we  call  Nature,  all  outside  our- 
selves, 

Is  but  our  own  conceit  of  what  we  see, 
Our  own  reaction  upon  what  we  feel ; 
The  world 's  a  woman  to  our  shifting 
mood, 

Feeling  with  us,  or  making  due  pretence ; 
And  therefore  we  the  more  persuade  our- 
selves 

To  make  all  things  our  thought's  con- 
federates, 

Conniving  with  us  in  whate'er  we  dream. 
So  when  our  Fancy  seeks  analogies, 
Though  she  have  hidden  what  she  after 
finds, 

She  loves  to  cheat  herself  with  feigned 
surprise. 

I  find  my  own  complexion  everywhere  : 
No  rose,  I  doubt,  was  ever,  like  the 
first, 

A  marvel  to  the  bush  it  dawned  upon, 
The  rapture  of  its  life  made  visible, 
The  mystery  of  its  yearning  realized, 
As  the  first  babe  to  the  first  woman 
born  ; 

No  falcon  ever  felt  delight  of  wings 
As  when,  an  eyas,  from  the  stolid  cliff 
Loosing  himself,  he  followed  his  high 
heart 

To  swim  on  sunshine,  masterless  as 
wind  ; 

And  I  believe  the  brown  earth  takes 
delight 

In  the  new  snowdrop  looking  back  at 
her, 

To  think  that  by  some  vernal  alchemy 


394 


THE  CATHEDRAL. 


It  could  transmute  her  darkness  into 
pearl  ; 

What  is  the  buxom  peony  after  that, 
"With  its  coarse  constancy  of  hoyden 
blush  ? 

What  the  full  summer  to  that  wonder 
new  ? 

But,  if  in  nothing  else,  in  us  there  is 
A  sense  fastidious  hardly  reconciled 
To  the  poor  makeshifts  of  life's  scenery, 
Where  the  same  slide  must  double  all  its 
parts, 

Shoved  in  for  Tarsus  and  hitched  back 
for  Tyre. 

I  blame  not  in  the  soul  this  daintiness, 
Rasher  of  surfeit  than  a  humming-bird, 
In  things  indifferent  by  sense  purveyed  ; 
It  argues  her  an  immortality 
And  dateless  incomes  of  experience, 
This  unthrift  housekeeping  that  will  not 
brook 

A  dish  warmed-over  at  the  feast  of  life, 
And  finds  Twice  stale,  served  with  what- 
ever sauce. 
Nor  matters  much  how  it  may  go  with 
me 

Who  dwell  in  Grub  Street  and  am  proud 
to  drudge 

Where  men,  my  betters,  wet  their  crust 

with  tears  : 
Use  can  make  sweet  the  peach's  shady 

side, 

That  only  by  reflection  tastes  of  sun. 

But  she,  my  Princess,  who  will  some- 
times deign 

My  garret  to  illumine  till  the  walls, 

Narrow  and  dingy,  scrawled  with  hack- 
neyed thought 

(Poor  Richard  slowly  elbowing  Plato 
out), 

Dilate  and  drape  themselves  with  tapes- 
tries 

Nausikaa  might  have  stooped  o'er,  while, 
between, 

Mirrors,  effaced  in  their  own  clearness, 
send 

Her  only  image  on  through  deepening 
deeps 

With  endless  repercussion  of  delight,  — 
Bringer  of  life,  witching  each  sense  to 
soul, 

That  sometimes  almost  gives  me  to 
believe 

I  might  have  been  a  poet,  gives  at  least 
A  brain  desaxonized,  an  ear  that  makes 


Music  where  none  is,  and  a  keener  pang 
Of     exquisite      surmise  outleaping 

thought,  — 
Her  will  I  pamper  in  her  luxury  : 
No  crumpled  rose-leaf  of  too  careless 

choice 

Shall  bring  a  northern  nightmare  to  her 
dreams, 

Vexing  with  sense  of  exile  ;  hers  shall 
be 

The  in  vitiate  firstlings  of  experience, 
Vibrations  felt  but  once  and  felt  life- 
long : 

0,  more  than  half-way  turn  that  Grecian 
front 

Upon  me,  while  with  self-rebuke  I  spell, 
On  the  plain  fillet  that  confines  thy  hair 
In  conscious  bounds  of  seeming  uncon- 
straint, 

The  Naught  in  overplus,  thy  race's 
badge ! 

One  feast  for  her  I  secretly  designed 
In  that  Old  World  so  strangely  beautiful 
To  us  the  disinherited  of  eld,  — 
A  day  at  Chartres,  with  no  soul  beside 
To  roil  with  pedant  prate  my  joy  serene 
And  make  the  minster  shy  of  confidence. 
I  went,  and,  with  the  Saxon's  pious  care, 
First  ordered  dinner  at  the  pea-green 
inn, 

The  flies  and  I  its  only  customers, 
Till  by  and  by  there  came  two  English- 
men, 

Who  made  me  feel,  in  their  engaging 
way, 

I  was  a  poacher  on  their  self -preserve, 
Intent  constructively  on  lese-anglicism. 
To  them  (in  those  old  razor-ridden  days) 
My  beard  translated   me   to  hostile 
French ; 

So  they,  desiring  guidance  in  the  town, 
Half  condescended  to  my  baser  sphere, 
And,  clubbing  in  one  mess  their  lack  of 
phrase, 

Set  their  best  man  to  grapple  with  the 
Gaul. 

"  Esker  vous  ate  a  nabitang?"  he  asked ; 
"  I  never  ate  one  ;  are  they  good  ?"  asked 

Whereat  they  stared,  then  laughed,  and 
we  were  friends, 

The  seas,  the  wars,  the  centuries  inter- 
posed, 

Abolished  in  the  truce  of  common  speech 
And  mutual  comfort  of  the  mother- 
tongue. 


THE  CATHEDRAL. 


395 


Like  escaped  convicts  of  Propriety, 
They  furtively  partook  the  joys  of  men, 
Glancing  behind  when  buzzed  some 
louder  fly. 

Eluding  these,  I  loitered  through  the 
town, 

With  hope  to  take  my  minster  unawares 
In  its  grave  solitude  of  memory. 
A  pretty  burgh,  and  such  as  Fancy  loves 
For  bygone  grandeurs,  faintly  rumorous 
now 

Upon  the  mind's  horizon,  as  of  storm 
Brooding  its  dreamy  thunders  far  aloof, 
That  mingle  with  our  mood,  but  not 
disturb. 

Its  once  grim  bulwarks,  tamed  to  lovers' 
walks, 

Look  down  unwatchful  on  the  sliding 
Eure, 

Whose  listless  leisure  suits  the  quiet 
place, 

Lisping  among  his  shallows  homelike 
sounds 

At  Concord  and  by  Bankside  heard  be- 
fore. 

Chance  led  me  to  a  public  pleasure- 
ground, 

Where  I  grew  kindly  with  the  merry 
groups, 

And  blessed  the  Frenchman  for  his  sim- 
ple art 

Of  being  domestic  in  the  light  of  day. 
His  language  has  no  word,  we  growl,  for 
Home  ; 

But  he  can  find  a  fireside  in  the  sun, 
Play  with  his  child,  make  love,  and 

shriek  his  mind, 
By  throngs  of  strangers  undisprivacied. 
He  makes  his  life  a  public  gallery, 
Nor  feels  himself  till  what  he  feels  comes 

back 

In  manifold  reflection  from  without  ; 

While  we,  each  pore  alert  with  con- 
sciousness, 

Hide  our  best  selves  as  we  had  stolen 
them, 

And  each  bystander  a  detective  were, 
Keen-eyed  for  every  chink  of  undisguise. 

So,  musing  o'er  the  problem  which  was 
best,  — 

A  life  wide-windowed,  shining  all  abroad, 
Or  curtains  drawn  to  shield  from  sight 
profane 

The  rites  we  pay  to  the  mysterious  I,  — 


With  outward  senses  furloughed  and 

head  bowed 
I  followed  some  fine  instinct  in  my  feet, 
Till,  to  unbend  me  from  the  loom  of 

thought, 

Looking  up  suddenly,  I  found  mine  eyes 
Confronted  with  the  minster's  vast  re- 
pose. 

Silent  and  gray  as  forest-leaguered  cliff' 
Left  inland  by  the  ocean's  slow  retreat, 
That  hears  afar  the  breeze-borne  rote 

and  longs, 
Remembering  shocks  of  surf  that  clomb 

and  fell, 

Spume-sliding  down  the  baffled  decuman, 
It  rose  before  me,  patiently  remote 
From  the  great  tides  of  life  it  breasted 
once, 

Hearing  the  noise  of  men  as  in  a  dream. 
I  stood  before  the  triple  northern  port, 
Where  dedicated  shapes  of  saints  and 
kings, 

Stern  faces  bleared  with  immemorial 
watch, 

Looked  down  benignly  grave  and  seemed 
to  say, 

Ye  come  and  go  incessant ;  we  remain 
Safe  in  the  hallowed  quiets  of  the  past ; 
Be  reverent,  ye  who  flit  and  are  forgot, 
Of  faith  so  nobly  realized  as  this. 
I  seem  to  have  heard  it  said  by  learned 
folk 

Who  drench  you  with  aesthetics  till  you 
feel 

As  if  all  beauty  were  a  ghastly  bore, 
The  faucet  to  let  loose  a  wash  of  words, 
That  Gothic  is  not  Grecian,  therefore 
worse  ; 

But,  being  convinced  by  much  experi- 
ment 

How  little  inventiveness  there  is  in  man, 
Grave  copier  of  copies,  I  give  thanks 
For  a  new  relish,  careless  to  inquire 
My  pleasure's  pedigree,  if  so  it  please, 
Nobly,  I  mean,  nor  renegade  to  art. 
The  Grecian  gluts  me  with  its  perfect- 
ness, 

Unanswerable  as  Euclid,  self-contained, 
The  one  thing  finished  in  this  hasty 
world, 

Forever  finished,  though  the  barbarous 
pit, 

Fanatical  on  hearsay,  stamp  and  shout 
As  if  a  miracle  could  be  encored.  . 
But  ah  !  this  other,  this  that  never  ends, 
Still  climbing,  luring  fancy  still  to  climb, 
As  full  of  morals  half-divined  as  life, 


396 


THE  CATHEDRAL. 


Graceful,  grotesque,  with  ever  new  sur- 
prise 

Of  hazardous  caprices  sure  to  please, 
Heavy  as  nightmare,  airy-light  as  fern, 
Imagination's  very  self  in  stone  ! 
With  one  long  sigh  of  infinite  release 
From  pedantries  past,  present,  or  to 
come, 

I  looked,  and  owned  myself  a  happv 
Goth. 

Your  blood  is  mine,  ye  architects  of 
dream, 

Builders  of  aspiration  incomplete, 
So  more  consummate,  souls  self-confi- 
dent, 

Who  felt  your  own  thought  worthy  of 
record 

In  monumental  pomp !  No  Grecian  drop 
Rebukes  these  veins  that  leap  with  kin- 
dred thrill, 
After  long  exile,  to  the  mother- tongue. 

Ovid  in  Pontus,  puling  for  his  Rome 
Of  men  invirile  and  disnatured  dames 
That  poison  sucked  from  the  Attic 

bloom  decayed, 
Shrank  with  a  shudder  from  the  blue- 
eyed  race 

Whose  force  rough-handed  should  re- 
new the  world, 
And  from  the  dregs  of  Romulus  express 
Such  wine  as  Dante  poured,  or  he  who 
blew 

Roland's  vain  blast,  or  sang  the  Cam- 
peador 

In  verse  that  clanks  like  armor  in  the 
charge,  — 

Homeric  juice,  if  brimmed  in  Odin's 
horn. 

And  they  could  build,  if  not  the  col- 
umned fane 

That  from  the  height  gleamed  seaward 
many-hued, 

Something  more  friendly  with  their 
ruder  skies  : 

The  gray  spire,  molten  now  in  driving 
mist, 

Now  lulled  with  the  incommunicable 
blue  ; 

The  carvings  touched  to  meanings  new 

with  snow, 
Or  commented  with  fleeting  grace  of 

shade  ; 

The  statues,  motley  as  man's  memory, 
Partial  as  that,  so  mixed  of  true  and 
false, 

History  and  legend  meeting  with  a  kiss 


Across  this  bound-mark  where  their 

realms  confine; 
The  painted  windows,  freaking  gloom 

with  glow, 
Dusking  the  sunshine  which  they  seem 

to  cheer, 

Meet  symbol  of  the  senses  and  the  soul ; 
And  the  whole  pile,  grim  with  the 

Northman's  thought 
Of  life  and  death,  and  doom,  life's  equal 

fee,  — 

These  were  before  me :  and  I  gazed 
abashed, 

Child  of  an  age  that  lectures,  not  creates, 
Plastering  our  swallow-nests  on  the  aw- 
ful Past, 

And  twittering  round  the  work  of  larger 
men, 

As  we  had  builded  what  we  but  deface. 
Far  up  the  great  bells  wallowed  in  de- 
light, 

Tossing  their  clangors  o'er  the  heedless 
town, 

To  call  the  worshippers  who  never  came, 
Or  women  mostly,  in  loath  twos  and 
threes. 

I  entered,  reverent  of  whatever  shrine 
Guards  piety  and  solace  for  my  kind 
Or  gives  the  soul  a  moment's  truce  of 
God, 

And  shared  decorous  in  the  ancient  rite 
My  sterner  fathers  held  idolatrous. 
The  service  over,  I  was  tranced  in 
thought : 

Solemn  the  deepening  vaults,  and  most 
to  me, 

Fresh  from  the  fragile  realm  of  deal  and 
paint, 

Or  brick  mock -pious  with  a  marble 
front ; 

Solemn  the  lift  of  high-embowered  roof, 
The  clustered  stems   that  spread  in 

boughs  disleaved, 
Through  which  the  organ  blew  a  dream 

of  storm, — 
Though  not  more  potent  to  sublime 

with  awe 

And  shut  the  heart  up  in  tranquillity, 
Than  aisles  to  me  familiar  that  o'erarch 
The   conscious    silences    of  brooding 
woods, 

Centurial  shadows,  cloisters  of  the  elk  : 
Yet  here  was  sense  of  undefined  regret, 
Irreparable  loss,  uncertain  what : 
Was   all   this  grandeur  but  anachro- 
nism, — 

A  shell  divorced  of  its  informing  life, 


THE  CATHEDRAL. 


397 


Where  the  priest  housed  him  like  a 

hermit-crab, 
An  alien  to  that  faith  of  elder  days 
That  gathered  round  it  this  fair  shape 

of  stone? 
Is  old  Religion  but  a  spectre  now, 
Haunting  the  solitude    of  darkened 

minds, 

Mocked  out  of  memory  by  the  sceptic 
day? 

Is  there  no  corner  safe  from  peeping 
Doubt, 

Since  Gutenberg  made  thought  cosmop- 
olite 

And  stretched  electric  threads  from 

mind  to  mind? 
Nay,  did  Faith  build  this  wonder?  or 

did  Fear, 

That  makes  a  fetish  and  misnames  it  God 
(Blockish  or  metaphysic,  matters  not), 
Contrive  this  coop  to  shut  its  tyrant  in, 
Appeased  with  playthings,  that  he  might 
not  harm? 

I  turned  and  saw  a  beldame  on  her 
knees ; 

With  eyes  astray,  she  told  mechanic 
beads 

Before  some  shrine  of  saintly  woman- 
hood, 

Bribed  intercessor  with  the  far-off  Judge : 
Such  my  first  thought,  by  kindlier  soon 
rebuked, 

Pleading  for  whatsoever  touches  life 
With  upward  impulse:  be  He  nowhere 
else, 

God  is  in  all  that  liberates  and  lifts, 
In  all  that  humbles,  sweetens,  and  con- 
soles : 

Blessed  the  natures  shored  on  every  side 
With  landmarks  of  hereditary  thought  ! 
Thrice  happy  they  that  wander  not  life- 
long 

Beyond  near  succor  of  the  household 
faith, 

The  guarded  fold  that  shelters,  not  con- 
lines  ! 

Their  steps  find  patience  in  familiar 
paths, 

Printed  with  hope  by  loved  feet  gone 
before 

Of  parent,  child,  or  lover,  glorified 
By  simple  magic  of  dividing  Time. 
My  lids  were  moistened  as  the  woman 
knelt, 

And  —  was  it  will,  or  some  vibration 
faint 


Of  sacred  Nature,  deeper  than  the 
will?  — 

My  heart  occultly  felt  itself  in  hers, 
Through  mutual    intercession  gently 
leagued. 

Or  was  it  not  mere  sympathy  of  brain? 
A  sweetness  intellectually  conceived 
In  simpler  creeds  to  me  impossible  ? 
A  juggle  of  that  pity  for  ourselves 
In  others,  which  puts  on  such  pretty 
masks 

And  snares  self-love  with  bait  of  charity  ? 
Something  of  all  it  might  be,  or  of  none : 
Yet  for  a  moment  I  was  snatched  away 
And  had  the  evidence  of  things  not  seen  ; 
For  one  rapt  moment ;  then  it  all  came 
back, 

This  age  that  blots  out^life  with  question- 
marks, 

This  nineteenth  century  with  its  knife 
and  glass 

That  make  thought  physical,  and  thrust 
far  off 

The  Heaven,  so  neighborly  with  man  of 
old, 

To  voids  sparse-sown  with  alienated 
stars. 

'T  is  irrecoverable,  that  ancient  faith, 
Homely  and  wholesome,  suited  to  the 
time, 

With  rod  or  candy  for  child-minded 
men  : 

No  theologic  tube,  with  lens  on  lens 
Of   syllogism   transparent,   brings  it 
near,  — 

At  best  resolving  some  new  nebula, 
Or  blurring  some  fixed-star  of  hope  to 
mist. 

Science  was  Faith  once ;  Faith  were 

Science  now, 
Would  she  but  lay  her  bow  and  arrows  by 
And  arm  her  with  the  weapons  of  the 

time. 

Nothing  that  keeps  thought  out  is  safe 
from  thought. 

For  there 's  no  virgin-fort  but  self- 
respect, 

And  Truth  defensive  hath  lost  hold  on 
God. 

Shall  we  treat  Him  as  if  He  were  a  child 
That  knew  not  His  own  purpose  ?  nor 

dare  trust 
The  Rock  of  Ages  to  their  chemic  tests, 
Lest  some  day  the  all-sustaining  base 

divine 


398  THE  CATHEDRAL. 


Should  fail  from  under  us,  dissolved  in 
gas? 

The  armed  eye  that  with  a  glance  dis- 
cerns 

In  a  dry  blood-speck  between  ox  and 
man, 

Stares  helpless  at  this  miracle  called 
life, 

This  shaping  potency  behind  the  egg, 
This  circulation  swift  of  deity, 
Where  suns  and  systems  inconspicuous 
float 

As  the  poor  blood-disks  in  our  mortal 
veins. 

Each  age  must  worship  its  own  thought 
of  God, 

More  or  less  earthy,  clarifying  still 
With  subsidence  continuous  of  the  dregs ; 
Nor  saint  nor  sage  could  fix  immutably 
The  fluent  image  of  the  unstable  Best, 
Still  changing  in  their  very  hands  that 
wrought : 

To-day's  eternal  truth  To-morrow  proved 
Frail  as  frost-landscapes  on  a  window- 
pane. 

Meanwhile  Thou  smiledst,  inaccessible, 
At  Thought's  own  substance  made  a  cage 

for  Thought, 
And  Truth  locked  fast  with  her  own 

master-key ; 
Nor  didst  Thou  reck  what  image  man 

might  make 
Of  his  own  shadow  on  the  flowing  world ; 
The  climbing  instinct  was  enough  for 

Thee. 

Or  wast  Thou,  then,  an  ebbing  tide  that 
left 

Strewn  with  dead  miracle  those  eldest 
shores, 

For  men  to  dry,  and  dryly  lecture  on, 
Thyself  thenceforth  incapable  of  flood  ? 
Idle  who  hopes  with  prophets  to  be 
snatched 

By  virtue  in  their  mantles  left  below  ; 
Shall  the  soul  live  on  other  men's  report, 
Herself  a  pleasing  fable  of  herself  ? 
Man  cannot  be  God's  outlaw  if  he  would, 
Nor  so  abscond  him  in  the  caves  of 
sense 

But  Nature  still  shall  search  some  crev- 
ice out 

With  messages  of  splendor  from  that 
Source 

Which,  dive  he,  soar  he,  baffles  still  and 
lures. 

This  life  were  brutish  did  we  not  some- 
times 


Have  intimation  clear  of  wider  scope, 
Hints  of  occasion  infinite,  to  keep 
The  soul  alert  with  noble  discontent 
And  onward  yearnings  of  unstilled  de- 
sire ; 

Fruitless,  except  we  now  and  then  di- 
vined 

A  mystery  of  Purpose,  gleaming  through 
The  secular  confusions  of  the  world, 
Whose  will  we  darkly  accomplish,  doing 
ours. 

No  man  can  think  nor  in  himself  per- 
ceive, 

Sometimes  at  waking,  in  the  street 

sometimes, 
Or  on  the  hillside,  always  unforewarned, 
A  grace  of  being,  finer  than  himself, 
That  beckons  and  is  gone,  —  a  larger 

life 

Upon  his  own  impinging,  with  swift 
glimpse 

Of  spacious  circles  luminous  with  mind, 
To  which  the  ethereal  substance  of  his 
own 

Seems  but  gross  cloud  to  make  that 
visible, 

Touched  to  a  sudden  glory  round  the 
edge. 

Who  that  hath  known  these  visitations 
fleet 

Would  strive  to  make  them  trite  and 
ritual  ? 

I,  that  still  pray  at  morning  and  at  eve, 
Loving  those  roots  that  feed  us  from  the 
past, 

And  prizing  more  than  Plato  things  I 
learned 

At  that  best  academe,  a  mother's  knee, 
Thrice  in  my  life  perhaps  have  truly 
prayed, 

Thrice,  stirred  below  my  conscious  self, 
have  felt 

That  perfect  disenthral ment  which  is 
God; 

Nor  know  I  which  to  hold  worst 
enemy,  — 

Him  who  on  speculation's  windy  waste 

Would  turn  me  loose,  stript  of  the  rai- 
ment warm 

By  Faith  contrived  against  our  naked- 
ness, 

Or  him  who,  cruel-kind,  would  fain 
obscure, 

With  painted  saints  and  paraphrase  of 
God, 

The  soul's  east-window  of  divine  sur- 
prise. 


THE  CATHEDRAL. 


399 


Where  others  worship  I  hut  look  and 
long; 

For,  though  not  recreant  to  my  fathers' 
faith, 

Its  forms  to  me  are  weariness,  and  most 
That    drony  vacuum    of  compulsory 
prayer, 

Still  pumping  phrases  for  the  Ineffable, 
Though  all  the  valves  of  memory  gasp 

and  wheeze. 
Words  that  have  drawn  transcendent 

meanings  up 
From  the  best  passion  of  all  bygone 

time, 

Steeped  through  with  tears  of  triumph 

and  remorse, 
Sweet  with  all  sainthood,  cleansed  in 

martyr-fires, 
Can  they,  so  consecrate  and  so  inspired, 
By  repetition  wane  to  vexing  wind  ? 
Alas  !  we  cannot  draw  habitual  breath 
In  the  thin  air  of  life's  supremer  heights, 
We  cannot  make  each  meal  a  sacrament, 
Nor  with  our  tailors  be  disbodied  souls,  — 
Wre  men,  too  conscious  of  earth's  comedy, 
Who  see  two  sides,  with  our  posed  selves 

debate, 

And  only  for  great  stakes  can  be  sub- 
lime ! 

Let  us  be  thankful  when,  as  I  do  here, 
We  can  read  Bethel  on  a  pile  of  stones, 
And,  seeing  where  God  has  been,  trust 
in  Him. 

Brave  Peter  Fischer  there  in  Nuremberg, 
Moulding  Saint  Sebald's  miracles  in 
bronze, 

Put  saint  and  stander-by  in  that  quaint 
garb 

Familiar  to  him  in  his  daily  walk, 
Not  doubting  God  could  grant  a  miracle 
Then  and  in  Nuremberg,  if  so  He  would  ; 
But  never  artist  for  three  hundred  years 
Hath  dared  the  contradiction  ludicrous 
Of  supernatural  in  modern  clothes. 
Perhaps  the  deeper  faith  that  is  to  come 
Will  see  God  rather  in  the  strenuous 
doubt, 

Than  in  the  creed  held  as  an  infant's 
hand 

Holds  purposeless  whatsois  placed  there- 
in. 

Say  it  is  drift,  not  progress,  none  the 
less, 

With  the  old  sextant  of  the  fathers' 
creed, 


We  shape  our  courses  by  new-risen  stars, 
And,  still  lip-loyal  to  what  once  was 
truth, 

Smuggle  new  meanings  under  ancient 
names, 

Unconscious  perverts  of  the  Jesuit,  Time. 
Change  is  the  mask  that  all  Continuance 

wears 

To    keep    us    youngsters  harmlessly 
amused  ; 

Meanwhile  some  ailing  or  more  watchful 
child, 

Sitting  apart,  sees  the  old  eyes  gleam 
out, 

Stern,  and  yet  soft  with  humorous  pity 
too. 

Whilere,  men  burnt  men  for  a  doubtful 
point, 

As  if  the  mind  were  quen  enable  with 
fire, 

And  Faith  danced  round  them  with  her 

war-paint  on, 
Devoutly  savage  as  an  Iroquois  ; 
Now  Calvin  and  Servetus  at  one  board 
Snuff  in  grave  sympathy  a  milder  roast, 
And  o'ertheir  claret  settle  Comte  unread. 
Fagot  and  stake  were  desperately  sin- 
cere : 

Our  cooler  martyrdoms  are  done  in  types  ; 
And  flames  that  shine  in  controversial 

eyes 

Burn  out  no  brains  but  his  who  kindles 
them. 

This  is  no  age  to  get  cathedrals  built : 
Did  God,  then,  wait  for  one  in  Bethle- 
hem ? 

Worst  is  not  yet :  lo,  where  his  coming 
looms, 

Of  Earth's  anarchic  children  latest  born, 
Democracy,  a  Titan  who  hath  learned 
To  laugh  at  Jove's  old-fashioned  thun- 
derbolts, — 
Could  he  not  also  forge  them,  if  he 
would  ? 

He,  better  skilled,  with  solvents  merci- 
less, 

Loosened  in  air  and  borne  on  every  wind, 
Saps  unperceived  :  the  calm  Olympian 
height 

Of  ancient  order  feels  its  bases  yield, 
And  pale  gods  glance  for  help  to  gods  as 
pale. 

What  will  be  left  of  good  or  worshipful, 
Of  spiritual  secrets,  mysteries, 
Of  fair  religion's  guarded  heritage, 
Heirlooms  of  soul,  passed  downward  un- 
profaned 


400 


THE  CATHEDRAL. 


From  eldest  Ind?    This  Western  giant 
coarse, 

Scorning  refinements  which  he  lacks 
himself, 

Loves  not  nor  heeds  the  ancestral  hie- 
rarchies, 

Each  rank  dependent  on  the  next  above 
In  orderly  gradation  fixed  as  fate. 
King  by  mere  manhood,  nor  allowing 
aught 

Of  holier  unction  than  the  sweat  of  toil ; 
In  his  own  strength  sufficient ;  called  to 
solve, 

On  the  rough  edges  of  society, 
Problems  long  sacred  to  the  choicer  few, 
And  improvise  what  elsewhere  men  re- 
ceive 

As  gifts  of  deity ;  tough  foundling  reared 
Where  every  man 's  his  own  Melchise- 
dek, 

How  make  him  reverent  of  a  King  of 
kings  ? 

Or  Judge  self-made,  executor  of  laws 
By  him  not  first  discussed  and  voted  on  ? 
For  him  no  tree  of  knowledge  is  forbid, 
Or  sweeter  if  forbid.    How  save  the 
ark, 

Or  holy  of  holies,  unprofaned  a  day 
From  his  unscrupulous  curiosity 
That  handles  everything  as  if  to  buy, 
Tossing  aside  what  fabrics  delicate 
Suit  not  the  rough-and-tumble  of  his 
ways? 

What  hope  for  those  fine-nerved  humani- 
ties 

That  made  earth  gracious  once  with 

gentler  arts, 
Now  the  rude  hands  have  caught  the 

trick  of  thought 
And  claim  an  equal  suffrage  with  the 

brain  ? 

The  born  disciple  of  an  elder  time, 
(To  me  sufficient,  friendlier  than  the 
new,) 

Who  in  my  blood  feel  motions  of  the 
Past, 

I   thank  benignant  nature  most  for 
this,  — 

A  force  of  sympathy,  or  call  it  lack 
Of  character  firm-planted,  loosing  me 
From  the  pent  chamber  of  habitual 
self 

To  dwell  enlarged  in  alien  modes  of 
thought, 

Haply  distasteful,  wholesomer  for  that, 
And  through  imagination  to  possess, 


As  they  were  mine,  the  lives  of  other 
men. 

This  growth  original  of  virgin  soil, 
By  fascination  felt  in  opposites, 
Pleases  and  shocks,  entices  and  perturbs. 
In  this  brown-fisted  rough,  this  shirt- 
sleeved  Cid, 
This  backwoods  Charlemagne  of  empires 
new, 

Whose    blundering  heel  instinctively 
finds  out 

The  goutier  foot  of  speechless  dignities, 
Who,  meeting  Caesar's  self,  would  slap 
his  back, 

Call  him  "  Old  Horse,"  and  challenge  to 
a  drink, 

My  lungs  draw  braver  air,  my  breast 

dilates 

With  ampler  manhood,  and  I  front  both 

worlds, 

Of  sense  and  spirit,  as  my  natural  fiefs, 
To  shape  and  then  reshape  them  as  I 
will. 

It  was  the  first  man's  charter ;  why  not 

mine? 

How  forfeit?  when  deposed  in  other 
hands  ? 

Thou  shudder' st,  Ovid?    Dost  in  him 

forebode 

A  new  avatar  of  the  large-limbed  Goth, 
To  break,  or  seem  to  break,  tradition's 
clew, 

And  chase  to  dreamland  back  thy  gods 

dethroned  ? 
I  think  man's  soul  dwells  nearer  to  the 

east, 

Nearer  to  morning's  fountains  than  the 
sun ; 

Herself  the  source  whence  all  tradition 
sprang, 

Herself  at  once  both  labyrinth  and  clew. 
The  miracle  fades  out  of  history, 
But  faith  and  wonder  and  the  primal 
earth 

Are  born  into  the  world  with  every  child. 
Shall  this  self-maker  with  the  prying 

eyes, 

This  creature  disenchanted  of  respect 
By  the  New  World's  new  fiend,  Pub- 
licity, 

Whose  testing  thumb  leaves  everywhere 

its  smutch, 
Not  one  day  feel  within  himself  the  need 
Of  loyalty  to  better  than  himself, 
That  shall  ennoble  him  with  the  upward 

look? 


THE  CATHEDRAL. 


401 


Shall  lie  not  catch  the  Voice  that  wan- 
ders earth, 

"With  spiritual  summons,  dreamed  or 
heard, 

As  sometimes,  just  ere  sleep  seals  up  the 
sense, 

We  hear  our  mother  call  from  deeps  of 
Time, 

And,  waking,  find  it  vision,  —  none  the 
less 

The  benediction  bides,  old  skies  return, 
And  that  unreal  thing,  pre-eminent, 
Makes  air  and  dream  of  all  we  see  and 
feel? 

Shall  he  divine  no  strength  unmade  of 
votes, 

Inward,  impregnable,  found  soon  as 
sought, 

Not  cognizable  of  sense,  o'er  sense  su- 
preme ? 

His  holy  places  may  not  be  of  stone, 
Nor  made  with  hands,  yet  fairer  far  than 
aught 

By  artist  feigned  or  pious  ardor  reared, 
Fit  altars  for  who  guards  inviolate 
God's  chosen  seat,  the  sacred  form  of 
man. 

Doubtless  his  church  will  be  no  hospital 
For  superannuate  forms  and  mumping 
shams, 

No  parlor  where  men  issue  policies 
Of  life-assurance  on  the  Eternal  Mind, 
Nor  his  religion  but  an  ambulance 
To  fetch  life's  wounded  and  malinger- 
ers in, 

Scorned  by  the  strong;  yet  he,  uncon- 
scious heir 

To  the  influence  sweet  of  Athens  and  of 
Rome, 

And  old  Judaea's  gift  of  secret  fire, 
Spite  of  himself  shall  surely  learn  to 
know 

And  worship  some  ideal  of  himself, 
Some  divine  thing,  large-hearted,  broth- 
erly, > 

Not  nice  in  trifles,  a  soft  creditor, 
Pleased  with  his  world,  and  hating  only 
cant. 

And,  if  his  Church  be  doubtful,  it  is 
sure 

That,  in  a  world,  made  for  whatever  else, 
Not  made  for  mere  enjoyment,  in  a 
world 

Of  toil  but  half-requited,  or,  at  best, 
Paid  in  some  futile  currency  of  breath, 
A  world  of  incompleteness,  sorrow  swift 
And  consolation  laggard,  whatsoe'er 


The  form  of  building  or  the  creed  pro- 
fessed, 

The  Cross,  bold  type  of  shame  to  hom- 
age turned, 

Of  an  unfinished  life  that  sways  the 
world, 

Shall  tower  as  sovereign  emblem  over 
all. 

The  kobold  Thought  moves  with  us 

when  we  shift 
Our  dwelling  to  escape  him ;  perched 

aloft 

On  the  first  load  of  household-stuff  he 
went ; 

For,  where  the  mind  goes,  goes  old  fur- 
niture. 

I,  who  to  Chartres  came  to  feed  my  eye 
And  give  to  Fancy  one  clear  holiday, 
Scarce  saw  the  minster  for  the  thoughts 
it  stirred 

Buzzing  o'er  past  and  future  with  vain 
quest. 

Here  once  there  stood  a  homely  wooden 
church, 

Which  slow  devotion  nobly  changed  for 
this 

That  echoes  vaguely  to  my  modem 
steps. 

By  suffrage  universal  it  was  built, 
As  practised  then,  for  all  the  country 
came 

From  far  as  Rouen,  to  give  votes  for 
God, 

Each  vote  a  block  of  stone  securely  laid 
Obedient  to  the  master's  deep-mused 
plan. 

Will  what  our  ballots  rear,  responsible 
To  no  grave  forethought,  stand  so  long 
as  this  ? 

Delight  like  this  the  eye  of  after  days 
Brightening  with  pride  that  here,  at 

least,  were  men 
Who  meant  and  did  the  noblest  thing 

they  knew? 
Can  our  religion  cope  with  deeds  like 

this  ? 

We,  too,  build  Gothic  contract- shams, 
because 

Our  deacons  have  discovered  that  it  pays, 
And  pews  sell  better  under  vaulted  roofs 
Of  plaster  painted  like  an  Indian  squaw. 
Shall  not  that  Western  Goth,  of  whom 

we  spoke, 
So  fiercely  practical,  so  keen  of  eye, 
Find  out,  some  day,  that  nothing  pays 

but  God, 


402 


THE  CATHEDRAL. 


Served  whether  on  the  smoke-shut  bat- 
tle-field, 

In  work  obscure  done  honestly,  or  vote 
For  truth  unpopular,  or  faith  maintained 
To  ruinous  convictions,  or  good  deeds 
Wrought  for  good's  sake,  mindless  of 

heaven  or  hell  ? 
Shall  he  not  learn  that  all  prosperity, 
Whose  bases  stretch  not  deeper  than  the 

sense, 

Is  but  a  trick  of  this  world's  atmosphere, 
A  desert-born  mirage  of  spire  and  dome, 
Or  find  too  late,  the  Past's  long  lesson 
missed, 

That  dust  the  prophets  shake  from  off 
their  feet 

Grows  heavy  to  drag  down  both  tower 
and  wall  ? 

I  know  not ;  but,  sustained  by  sure 
belief 

That  man  still  rises  level  with  the  height 
Of  noblest  opportunities,  or  makes 
Such,  if  the  time  supply  not,  I  can  wait. 
I  gaze  round  on  the  windows,  pride  of 
France, 

Each  the  bright  gift  of  some  mechanic 
guild 

Who  loved  their  city  and  thought  gold 

well  spent 
To  make  her  beautiful  with  piety ; 
I  pause,  transfigured  by  some  stripe  of 

bloom, 

And  my  mind  throngs  with  shining 
auguries, 

Circle  on  circle,  bright  as  seraphim, 
With  golden  trumpets,  silent,  that  await 
The  signal  to  blow  news  of  good  to  men. 

Then  the  revulsion  came  that  always 
comes 

After  these  dizzy  elations  of  the  mind : 
And  with  a  passionate  pang  of  doubt  I 
cried, 

"  0  mountain -born,  sweet  with  snow- 
filtered  air 
From  uncontaminate  wells  of  ether  drawn 
And  never-broken  secrecies  of  sky, 
Freedom,  with  anguish  won,  misprized 
till  lost, 

They  keep  thee  not  who  from  thy  sacred 
eyes 

Catch  the  consuming  lust  of  sensual 
good 

And  the  brute's  license  of  unfettered 
will. 

Far  from  the  popular  shout  and  venal 
breath 


Of  Cleon  blowing  the  mob's  baser  mind 
To  bubbles  of  wind-piloted  conceit, 
Thou  shrinkest,  gathering  up  thy  skirts, 
to  hide 

In  fortresses  of  solitary  thought 
And  private  virtue  strong  in  self-re- 
straint. 

Must  we  too  forfeit  thee  misunderstood, 
Content  with  names,  nor  inly  wise  to 
know 

That  best  things  perish  of  their  own  ex- 
cess, 

And  quality  o'er-driven  becomes  defect? 
Nay,  is  it  thou  indeed  that  we  have 

glimpsed, 
Or  rather  such  illusion  as  of  old 
Through  Athens  glided  menadlike  and 

Rome, 

A  shape  of  vapor,  mother  of  vain  dreams 
And  mutinous  traditions,  specious  plea 
Of  the  glaived  tyrant  and  long-memoried 
priest  ? "  " 

I  walked  forth  saddened ;  for  all  thought 
is  sad, 

And  leaves  a  bitterish   savor  in  the 
brain, 

Tonic,  it  may  be,  not  delectable, 

And  turned,  reluctant,  for  a  parting  look 

At  those  old  weather-pitted  images 

Of  bygone  struggle,  now  so  sternly  calm. 

About  their  shoulders  sparrows  had 

built  nests, 
And  fluttered,  chirping,  from  gray  perch 

to  perch, 

Now  on  a  mitre  poising,  now  a  crown, 
Irreverently  happy.    While  I  thought 
How  confident  they  were,  what,  careless 
hearts 

Flew   on  those  lightsome  wings  and 

shared  the  sun, 
A  larger  shadow  crossed  ;  and  looking 

up, 

I  saw  where,  nesting  in  the  hoary  towers, 
The  sparrow-hawk  slid  forth  on  noise- 
less air, 

With  sidelong  head  that  watched  the 

joy  below, 
Grim  Norman  baron  o'er  this  clan  of 

Kelts. 

Enduring  Nature,  force  conservative, 
Indifferent  to  our  noisy  whims!  Men 
prate 

Of  all  heads  to  an  equal  grade  cashiered 
On  level  with  the  dullest,  and  expect 
(Sick  of  no  worse  distemper  than  them- 
selves) 


THE  CATHEDKAL. 


403 


A  wondrous  cure-all  in  equality  ; 
They  reason  that  To-morrow  must  be 
wise 

Because  To-day  was  not,  nor  Yesterday, 
As  if  good  days  were  shapen  of  them- 
selves, 

Not  of  the  very  lifeblood  of  men's  souls ; 
Meanwhile,  long-suffering,  imperturb- 
able, 

Thou  quietly  complet'st  thy  syllogism, 
And  from  the  premise  sparrow  here  below 
Draw'st  sure  conclusion  of  the  hawk 
above, 

Pleased  with  the  soft-billed  songster, 

pleased  no  less 
"With  the  fierce  beak  of  natures  aquiline. 

Thou  beautiful  Old  Time,  now  hid  away 
In  the  Past's  valley  of  Avilion, 
Haply,  like  Arthur,  till  thy  wound  be 
healed, 

Then  to  reclaim  the  sword  and  crown 
again  ! 

Thrice  beautiful  to  us  ;  perchance  less 
fair 

To  who  possessed  thee,  as  a  mountain 
seems 

To  dwellers  round  its  bases  but  a  heap 
Of  barren  obstacle  that  lairs  the  storm 
And  the  avalanche's  silent  bolt  holds 
back 

Leashed  with  a  hair,  —  meanwhile  some 

far-off  clown, 
Hereditary  delver  of  the  plain, 
Sees  it  an  unmoved  vision  of  repose, 
Nest  of  the  morning,  and  conjectures 

there 

The  dance  of  streams  to  idle  shepherds' 
pipes, 

And  fairer  habitations  softly  hung 
On  breezy  slopes,  or  hid  in  valleys  cool, 
For  happier  men.     No  mortal  ever 
dreams 

That  the  scant  isthmus  he  encamps  upon 
Between  two  oceans,  one,  the  Stormy, 
passed, 

And  one,  the  Peaceful,  yet  to  venture 
on, 


Has  been  that  future  whereto  prophets 
yearned 

For  the  fulfilment  of  Earth's  cheated 
hope, 

Shall  be  that  past  which  nerveless  poets 
moan 

As  the  lost  opportunity  of  song. 

0  Power,  more  near  my  life  than  life 

itself 

(Or  what  seems  life  to  us  in  sense  im- 
mured), 

Even  as  the  roots,  shut  in  the  darksome 
earth, 

Share  in  the  tree-top's  joyance,  and 
conceive 

Of  sunshine  and  wide  air  and  winged 
things 

By  sympathy  of  nature,  so  do  I 
Have  evidence  of  Thee  so  far  above, 
Yet  in  and  of  me  !    Eather  Thou  the 
root 

Invisibly  sustaining,  hid  in  light, 
Not  darkness,  or  in  darkness  made  by 
us. 

If  sometimes  I  must  hear  good  men 
debate 

Of  other  witness  of  Thyself  than  Thou, 

As  if  there  needed  any  help  of  ours 

To  nurse  Thy  flickering  life,  that  else 

must  cease, 
Blown  out,  as 't  were  a  candle,  by  men's 

breath, 

My  soul  shall  not  be  taken  in  their  snare, 
To  change  her  inward  surety  for  their 
doubt 

Muffled  from  sight  in  formal  robes  of 
proof : 

While  she  can  only  feel  herself  through 
Thee, 

1  fear  not  Thy  withdrawal ;  more  I  fear, 
Seeing,  to  know  Thee  not,  hoodwinked 

with  dreams 
Of  signs  and  wonders,  while,  unnoticed, 
Thou, 

Walking  Thy  garden  still,  commun'st 

with  men, 
Missed  in  the  commonplace  of  miracle. 


INDEX. 


Above  and  Below,  79. 

Admetus,  The  Shepherd  of  King,  44. 

After  the  Burial,  353. 

Aladdin,  344. 

Al  Fresco,  339. 

Allegra,  10. 

All-Saints,  363. 

Ambrose,  78. 

Anti-Apis,  94. 

Apologue,  An  Oriental,  322-326. 
Appledore,  Pictures  from,  347-351. 
Auf  Wiedersehen,  352. 
Autograph,  For  an,  339. 

Bartlett,  To  Mr.  John,  366. 
Beaver  Brook,  100. 
Beggar,  The,  5. 
Bibliolatres,  99. 

Biglow  Papers,  The,  151  -  310. 

First  Series,  159. 

Second  Series,  205. 
Birch-Tree,  The,  80. 

Blondel,  Two  Scenes  from  the  Life  of,  380. 
Brittany,  A  Legend  of,  27-38. 
Burial,  After  the,  353. 

Captive,  The,  79. 

Car,  An  Incident  in  a  Railroad,  44. 
Cathedral,  The,  393-406. 
Changeling,  The,  90. 

Channing,  Elegy  on  the  Death  of  Dr.,  104. 
Child,  On  the  Death  of  a  Friend's,  87. 
Chippewa  Legend,  A,  54. 
Columbus,  56  -  60. 
Contrast,  A,  76. 
Courtin',  The,  229. 
Crisis,  The  Present,  67. 
Critics,  A  Fable  for,  113-150. 
Curtain,  A  Glance  behind  the,  49  -  54. 

Dandelion,  To  the,  83. 

Dante,  On  a  Portrait  of,  by  Giotto,  87. 

Dara,  335. 

Dead  House,  The,  353. 

Earlier  Poems,  1  -27. 
Ember  Picture,  An,  373. 
Eurydice,  89. 
Eve,  New- Year's,  339. 

Falcon,  The,  48. 

Familiar  Epistle  to  a  Friend,  A,  371. 
Fancy's  Casuistry,  365. 
Fatherland,  The,  13. 
Flower,  With  a  Pressed,  5. 


Foot-Path,  The,  376. 
Forlorn,  The,  14. 
Fountain  of  Youth,  The,  359 
Fountain,  The,  10. 
France,  Ode  to,  92. 
Freedom,  98. 
Freedom,  Stanzas  on,  56. 
Future,  To  the,  65. 

Garrison,  To  "W.  L.,  103. 
Ghost-Seer,  The,  84. 
Godminster  Chimes,  341. 
Gold  Egg :  A  Dream-Fantasy,  369. 

Hamburg,  An  Incident  of  the  Fire  at,  60. 

Happiness,  Ode  to,  367. 

Harvard  Commemoration,  Ode  recited  at  the, 

384-390. 
Hebe,  66. 
Heritage,  The,  15. 
Hood,  To  the  Memory  of,  106. 
Hunger  and  Cold,  61. 

Invita  Minerva,  359. 
Invitation,  An,  344. 
Irene,  3. 

Knott,  The  Unhappy  Lot  of  Mr.,  311  -  321. 
Kossuth,  101. 

Lamartine,  To,  101. 
Landlord,  The,  62. 

Launfal,  The  Vision  of  Sir,  107-112. 

Leaves,  The  Singing,  337. 
Legend,  The  Growth  of  the,  74. 
L' Envoi,  25,  390. 

Lines  suggested  by  the  Graves  of  two  English 

Soldiers  on  Concord  Battle-Ground,  97. 
Longing,  92. 
Love,  7. 
Love,  My,  5. 

Lyre,  The  Finding  of  the,  338. 

Mahmood  the  Image-Breaker,  358. 

Masaccio,  340. 

Memorise  Positum,  381. 

Memorial  Verses,  101  -106. 

Midnight,  15. 

Mind,  The  Darkened,  362. 

Miner,  The,  369. 

Miscellaneous  Poems,  27-100. 

Mood,  A,  354. 

Moon,  The,  9. 

Music,  Remembered,  9. 


40G 


INDEX. 


New- Year's  Eve,  1850,  330. 
Nightingale  iu  the  Study,  The,  375. 
Nomades,  The,  345. 
Norton,  To  Charles  Eliot,  "329. 

Oak,  The,  77. 
Ode,  11. 

Ode  written  for  the  Celebration  of  the  Intro- 
duction of  the  Cochituate  Water  into  the 
City  of  Boston,  9(5. 

On  Board  the  '76,  383. 

Palfrey,  To  John  G.,  102. 

Palinode,  352. 

Parable,  A,  IS,  96. 

Past,  To  the,  64. 

Perdita,  To,  Singing,  8. 

Pine-Tree,  To  a,  63. 

Pioneer,  The,  91. 

Poems  of  the  War,  376-391. 

Prayer,  A,  15. 

Prometheus,  38  -  44. 

Requiem,  A,  18. 

Reverie,  An  Indian-Summer,  69  -  74. 
Rhcecus,  46. 
Rosaline,  17. 
Rose,  The,  16. 

Search,  The,  66. 
Sea- Weed,  338. 
Self-Study,  346. 
Serenade,  4. 

She  Came  and  Went,  90. 
Shroud,  The  Washers  of  the,  378. 
Si  Descendero  in  Infernum,  Ades,  63. 
Sirens,  The,  2. 

Slaves,  On  the  Capture  of  Fugitive,  near  Wash- 
ington, 82. 
Snow-Fail,  The  First,  336. 
Song,  9,  17,  19. 


Sonnets,  19-25. 

To  A.  C.  L.,  19. 

To  the  Spirit  of  Keats,  20. 

To  M.  W.  on  her  Birthday,  21. 

Sub  Pondere  Crescit,  22. 

On  reading  Wordsworth's  Sonnets  in  Defence 
of  Capital  Punishment,  22,  23. 

To  M.  O.  S.,  23. 

In  Absence,  24. 

Wendell  Phillips,  24. 

The  Street,  24. 

To  J.  R.  Giddings,  25. 
Sower,  The,  61. 

Standish,  An  Interview  with  Miles,  81. 
Studies  for  Two  Heads,  86. 
Storm,  Summer,  6. 

Threnodia,  1. 
To  ,  98. 

To  H.  W.  L.,  on  his  Birthday,  374. 
Token,  The,  44. 

Torrey,  On  the  Death  of  C.  T.,  104. 
Trial,  48. 

Twilight,  In  the,  375. 

Unction,  Extreme,  76. 
Under  the  Willows,  329  -  335. 

Villa  Franca,  368. 

Vinland,  The  Voyage  to,  354  -  358. 

Ways,  The  Parting  of  the,  342. 
What  Rabbi  Jehosha  said,  363. 
Willows,  Under  the,  and  other  Poems,  327 

-377. 
Wind-Harp,  The,  351. 
Winter-Evening  Hymn  to  my  Fire,  A,  363. 
Without  and  Within,  341. 

russouf,  362. 


THE  END. 


Cambridge:  Electrotyped  and  Printed  by  W^elch,  Bigelow,  &  Co. 


I 


